《庄子集释》Vol. 3

Section Two-Five

Note (Guo Xiang) on [1]

“That” (bi) refers to ziran—the way things are of themselves, not something deliberately arranged by anyone. It is ziran that gives rise to me, and I too come into being along with ziran. Thus what we call ziran is simply the ziran in me; there is no need to treat it as something external and far away.

Commentary (Cheng Xuanying) on [1]

“Bi” means ziran. “Qu” (to take/receive) means to receive or inherit. If it were not ziran, who could give birth to me? If there were no “I,” who would receive ziran? Yet “I” is ziran, and ziran is “I”; the point is not abstruse, hence “it is also near.”

Note on [2]

The myriad forms and conditions of things are each as they are of themselves; they do not command or drive one another. Therefore if you let them be as they are, the pattern falls into place on its own.

Commentary on [2]

To say that I receive ziran means that the capacities and principles I need are already complete: the feet walk, the hands grasp, the ears hear, the eyes see—each performs its function in its own office. Nurturing and completion are not mutual coercion; there is no need for extra contrivance—simply release and let things be natural.

Note on [3]

The myriad things and their countless modes of accepting and rejecting differ from one another, as if some True Master (zhenzai) were directing them. Yet if you search for traces of that True Master, you never find one. This shows that each thing is natural on its own; there is no “master” making things be thus.

Commentary on [3]

The limbs differ in function and in use, as though genuine nature were present—but in fact there is no master. From what beginning, from what source, would the “tracks” of that genuine nature arise?

Note on [4]

People who walk now do so because they trust that they can walk—and therefore they walk.

Commentary on [4]

Trusting that one can use the body and act, one moves according to intent; the spontaneous mechanism unfolds, action follows native disposition, and one suffices unto oneself—why depend on anything outside?

Note on [5]

Yet one does not see by what form or on what basis “being able to walk” is obtained.

Commentary: All things act from what they already are, and one does not see any separate, standalone image called “trusting the way that can be followed.”

Annotation: When feeling and understanding fit what the situation calls for, there is no extra “form” that can be picked out and seen on its own.

Commentary: What is present is feeling and understanding that can act; there is no distinct bodily form called “believing in oneself.”

Annotation: When everything is left to ziran (spontaneous nature), no part fails to exist on its own or to do its work.

Commentary: “The hundred bones” (bai hai) means all the joints of the body; “the nine openings” (jiu qiao) are the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, mouth, and the two lower orifices; “the six stores” (liu zang) here means the six fu viscera—the large intestine, small intestine, bladder, the triple burner (san jiao), and the like. (In older usage, “zang” sometimes refers instead to the five zang organs: liver, heart, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.) “Gai” means complete or all accounted for. Bones lie outside, viscera inside, and the openings link inside and outside; only when all three are in place is there a body—hence “all are preserved”: each part is simply there and simply functions.

On pronunciation and terms

Baikuai (The Hundred Bones): The note gives the reading of hai (bones/skeleton) via the fanqie spelling “hu-jie.”

Liuzang (The Six Stores): Here zang (store/vessel) is read via the fanqie “cai-lang.”

The five viscera, six bowels, and the “nine stores” theory

In the usual scheme, heart, lung, liver, spleen, and kidney together are the five viscera (wuzang); large and small intestine, bladder, and the triple burner are the six bowels (liufu).

Another account holds that the body also has qi of the nine stores, assigned to the three domains of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity: Heaven corresponds to the qi of the head and horns, Humanity to ears and eyes, Earth to mouth and teeth. Each of the three domains is again divided into Heaven, Earth, and Humanity; three times three yields nine. Among these, five are stores of spirit and four of form, totaling nine. This passage, however, speaks only of six stores; the source is unclear.

Li Zhen notes that the commentary likewise says that “six stores” here is not traced to a known source. Cheng’s subcommentary forcibly takes “six” as the six bowels and “store” as the five viscera, which then fails to align with earlier talk of “the hundred officials and nine apertures.” According to Nanjing, difficult issue 39, the five viscera are sometimes called six stores because the kidneys count as two stores: the left is the kidney, the right is the Mingmen (Gate of Life)—where spirit and essence lodge, its qi continuous with the kidney—hence “six stores.” Whether “six stores” in this text means that remains to be shown elsewhere.

Gai (to comprise): Pronunciation near the fanqie “Xu-gu-lai.” Sima Biao glosses: complete, whole. The Xiao Erya agrees. Emperor Jianwen glosses: both-and, to encompass.

[Note] Eight

Each simply exists on its own—that is all.

[Note] Nine

If in every case one insists on “speaking” (pian shuo—partial, biased utterance; favoring and pleasing), that is already having private intent. With private intent one cannot gai (be comprehensive and hold all) and endure; hence one does not rely on partial speech to preserve oneself, nor on deliberate doing to bring oneself into being.

[Subcommentary]

The six roots (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) and the nine apertures (two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, plus the two lower openings, depending on the count) belong to one body—where would partiality and distance come from, that one could privately favor and please only some parts? The moment the mind favors, that is having private intent. To treat the body as something one can privatize is incoherent in principle. Better to let each part be natural and rest in its place; then sī cún (what keeps and orders each part—the natural charge of each office) is already there. So it is for the body; so it should be for the ten thousand things.

Note: The middle passage on “the body’s separate qi of the nine stores…” appears duplicated or overlapped in transmission in the source; the vernacular above merges the readable sense. For line-by-line comparison with a given edition of Zhuangzi commentaries, follow the version you are using.

If everyone pursues only private advantage, ambition oversteps its proper bounds, superiors and inferiors encroach on one another, and no one remains content in the role of minister or handmaiden. Those who have the capacity of a minister or handmaiden yet refuse to stay in that role bring disorder. From this it is clear that the divisions between ruler and subject, high and low, hands and feet, inner and outer, belong to Heaven’s natural order (tianli)—they are not something the “True Person” (Zhenren) artificially constructs.

Chenqie originally refers to the humbler station among scholars and women. The human body, too, has its ruler-and-subject pattern: when perceiving color, the eyes are ruler and the ears subject; when walking, the feet are ruler and the hands subject. All of this follows Heaven’s principle, not human design, and not affection or distance as the basis for who is ruler or subject. Guo Xiang comments: whoever the age treats as worthy becomes ruler; whoever’s talent does not match the times becomes subject. Governing the realm and cultivating the person—the inner–outer logic is the same.

Minister and handmaiden each keeping their place does not mean they cannot mutually “govern” one another. Mutual governance is like hands, feet, eyes, ears, and the limbs and trunk each having its function yet also serving one another. Ruler employs minister and handmaiden, each with its charge; the hand grasps, the foot walks, each secure in its role—would one make the foot walk because the hand is “not enough”? Heaven’s mechanism (tianji) unfolds of itself; without deliberate mutual scheming, order is achieved. Push this pattern further, and the same holds everywhere.

Whoever the age honors becomes ruler; whoever’s talent does not fit the world becomes subject. Heaven is high by nature, earth low by nature; the head naturally above, the feet naturally below—why would they swap and usurp one another? Even when nothing is misplaced in position, each part still naturally settles where it belongs.

Head on top, feet below; eyes see, ears hear—use and disuse have their seasons, hence high and low stations. That is not a matter of human feelings trading ruler and subject up and down. Simply let each be placed as it is, without the heart-mind (xin) forcing matters, and each will occupy its proper place.

The head naturally stays above and the feet naturally stay below; the eyes can see colors and the ears can hear sounds. Using or not using, taking or leaving—each has its proper moment, and that is why there is distinction between noble and base. Is this because people deliberately arrange emotions between high and low, swapping the roles of ruler and subject back and forth? It is not—when you simply let things be as they are and do not deliberately lay out schemes in the mind, affairs naturally find their own place.

Let things follow their nature and they will turn out that way; then there is no contrivance and no pretense.

Put aside calculation directly and do not waste thought on manipulation—in that very place the subtle Dao of the True Lord (the layer of “what is so of itself” that governs body and mind without seeking outside) is present. Another reading: the True Lord is the True Master spoken of earlier. The mind of taking and leaving, colors such as blue and yellow, have no fixed nature of their own from the start; they appear only when conditions come together. They are neither self-made nor other-made, neither absolutely “nothing” nor fixedly “something.” Hence a hypothetical question is used to show that there is no substantial “True Lord” that can be grasped as an entity.

Whoever sees their true nature and acts according to what is originally so—even if their station is as low as a menial attendant—does not heed praise or blame and rests at ease in their proper work. Thus whether they know or do not know, each remains secure in its own way. If one opens another path of hoping for luck and going against what is fitting—subordinates overstepping superiors, things losing their genuineness, people forgetting their root—then amid praise and blame, every turn is wrong.

Cheng Xuanying’s Commentary (On Gain and Loss)

When the heart and the outer world stir each other, desire arises. What feels obtained and aligned with one’s wishes is called “gain” (yi); what feels not obtained is called “loss” (sun). This describes how ordinary people are pulled by gain and loss. From the perspective of the wisdom of the Dao, human true nature is neither inherently diminished nor inherently augmented.

Wang Xianqian’s Note (On the Fixed Heart, following his father’s reading)

Only in mutual contrast do “this” and “not-this” appear; once “this” and “not-this” take shape in the mind, something often enters first and acts as master. What follows as right and wrong then turns with others like a servant; the hundred limbs, the nine openings, and the six viscera all move along with that pattern of right and wrong. Can one clearly separate what merely follows and obeys from what truly presides within? The master that fixes right and wrong in the heart is of little use to others; judging right and wrong to please human sentiment is not real “gain” or real “loss.” Yet once one molds a form of right and wrong in the heart and lets the heart be driven by it, holding to it unchanged for a lifetime—this is called the fixed heart (cheng xin). The fixed heart is what the “servant-like” parts obey.

Pronunciation Notes (Commentary on the Text)

In “sui fu” (though again), “fu” is read fu you fan; in “hui yu” (praise and blame), “yu” is read yu; in “wu sang” (loss of things), “sang” is read xi lang fan. These are the old fanqie spellings used to mark how the original text was read.

Guo Xiang’s Commentary (Section 15)

Nature has its own limits for each person: the wise keep to their wisdom to the end, the foolish cling to their foolishness until death—how could one swap one’s native endowment halfway through?

Cheng Xuanying’s Commentary (On the Limits of Nature)

The form and nature one receives each have boundaries; one cannot turn foolishness into wisdom or ugliness into beauty. Once form and nature are settled, they are not cast off midway; one should only keep to one’s allotted portion within one’s station and complete one’s natural span of years.

[16] [Commentary Note]

The myriad things take on every shape and hue; what runs counter and what accords interweave. Each person trusts only a partial view, indulges personal impulse, and no one turns back to examine themselves. What the common run of people lament is lamentable in the same way. Yet they never treat it as lamentable, because that is how their nature works. Each thing has its own nature—what is there to lament?

[Commentary]

“Ren” (the cutting edge) stands for what runs counter; “mi” (wearing smooth) stands for what accords. The multitude scatters in confusion; feeling and intent grow sharp in chasing the external world. When externals oppose or accord, the mind clings to right and wrong. Years pass in this way, swift as a gallop—only craving the outer world, never resting. Measured by the constant pattern of things, this is deeply lamentable.

[17] [Commentary Note]

Human desire knows no end; those who know sufficiency are few. So having gained one thing they do not stop, and run after the next. They are driven their whole lives; their aims are never satisfied until death. Thus what is called “success” is never seen while one is alive.

[Commentary]

Outward things provoke rivalry; those who are content are rare. Having got this, they do not cease, and chase that. So they toil all their lives and perish in grasping—like chasing a shadow or tying down the wind, empty labor. On what day would accomplishment appear?

(Phonetic note: “xian” is read as in the fanqie “xi qian.”)

[18] [Commentary Note]

All things are driven by what they favor, which wears out the body until it is exhausted and listless (nieran: wilted and worn). Yet they do not know what “why favor this?” ultimately points to!

[Commentary]

“Nieran” is the look of fatigue and collapse. When attachment runs deep, it enslaves the mind; body and spirit are both ruined, listless and in distress. Because they wholly trust and crave this rivalry, if you ask the meaning of it, they do not know where it leads. Folly to this degree is deeply pitiable.

Commentary on the text

In nieran (“weary/exhausted in appearance”), nie is read nai jie fan (a pronunciation close to “nie”). Xu Li is read nai xie fan. Cui Zuan’s phonetic gloss gives nian, explaining it as the look of “forgetting the body and forgetting the spirit.” Emperor Jianwen of Jin glosses it as the appearance of being worn out, ill, and in distress. Lu Wenchao notes that nie, in modern annotated editions, is often written with a different graph (er) that appears in Shuowen in the line “what is that er?” and differs from the usage in Yinyi. Ma Xulun adds: nie—in Sima Biao’s version the graph is er. The Wenxuan commentary on Xie Lingyun’s Passing Shining Ning Villa cites Sima Biao: er means an extreme state of exhaustion. The Shiwen passage here is defective. For suohao (“what one likes”), hao is read hu bao fan, the same below.

[19] [Annotation]

Meaning: the person is in effect no different from the dead.

[19] [Sub-commentary]

Nie: in Sima Biao’s version the graph is er. The Wenxuan commentary on Xie Lingyun’s Passing Shining Ning Villa cites Sima Biao: er means an extreme state of exhaustion. The Shiwen is defective here. For suohao, hao is read hu bao fan, the same below.

[19] [Annotation]

Meaning: the person is in effect no different from the dead.

[19] [Sub-commentary]

Xi: “why.” To be so stuck, trapped and unable to stop, harms cultivation and does nothing for qi and shen—one may say that though still within the days of life, one is like someone in the years of death.

[20] [Annotation]

It means heart and form rush on together, trapped with no return; compared with what ordinary people mourn, this is the greatest true mourning. Yet ordinary people never take this as mourning, so what common people mourn is not worth mourning.

[Sub-commentary]

Ran: “like this.” Thought after thought shifts and changes, ever new, ever passing away, turning into old age; mind-consciousness follows into dimness, form and spirit both change—hence it is said to be “like this” with them. In the world, no sorrow is greater than this.

[21]

(Same wording as the sub-commentary above.) Ran: like this. Thought after thought migrates, ever new, ever passing away; it transforms into old age, mind-consciousness follows into dimness, form and spirit both change—hence one speaks of being “like this” with them. In the world, nothing exceeds this in sorrow.

[21] [Annotation]

All the matters above happen without anyone knowing why they are so—hence they are called mang (obscure, confused). What is not yet known now is all “not knowing why one knows yet knowing”; what lives is all “not knowing why one lives yet living.” The myriad things differ, but as soon as it comes to life not arising from knowing, nothing is different—therefore under heaven nothing is not mang.

Commentary

“Mang” means dimness and failure to grasp things as they are. Most people living in the world are like this—dull and confused; the whole world is deluded, and who is not deluded? Zhuangzi, however, was a true person who had awakened to the Dao, with clear wisdom, yet was willing to stoop and move with the common run of society—hence the line “while I alone am mang.” Cheng Xuanying held that Guo Xiang’s gloss diverged somewhat here, so that gloss is not adopted.

Textual note (pronunciation and meaning)

This is a note on sound and sense: “mang” is read as in the fanqie gloss “mo gang fan” (also pronounced “wang”); the meaning is dimness or obscurity. Emperor Jianwen’s comment takes “mang” as equivalent in sense to “tong” (to be the same as). Readers using vernacular explanations may skip the fanqie; it is enough to know that here “mang” means dimness.

222 Annotation

The mind within that can command and unify the functions of the whole body is called the “cheng xin” (formed/fixed heart). If people take only their own set, already hardened opinions—their cheng xin—as their teacher, then each person has their own “teacher.” Since everyone has their own teacher, it is better to let things be: each follows their cheng xin, and in that way each gets what suits them.

222 Commentary

When feeling and cognition are bound by circumstances and cling without release, holding to one-sided views of a single school—this stubborn mind is the cheng xin. Going along with one’s sealed cheng xin and treating it as the standard is what most people in the world do; who can say that they alone have no “teacher”? (In fact everyone is taking their cheng xin as teacher.)

223 Annotation

Using an already formed cheng xin to replace a heart that is not yet formed and still open—this is not true wisdom; it is only the heart insisting on its own fixed view. So fools likewise take their cheng xin as teacher: they will not adopt what others call “short” to amend themselves, and will not give up what they call “long” in themselves.

223 Commentary

People of dull and dark sort cling to right and wrong; they need not truly understand where others are stronger and could replace their own weaknesses—they only want to dismiss others as “short” and exalt themselves as “long.” Such people are everywhere; the foolish often have long been trapped in this mindset.

[Annotation on the text]

“Yu you” is read with the pronunciation of Yu.

Jia Shifu says: In the Shuowen, dai means “to replace or shift.” What one holds correct today may be held wrong tomorrow, yet the mind has already fixed a standard; right and wrong keep arising without end—hence “knowing substitution” (zhi dai, knowing that right and wrong keep changing). When the mind feels something is right, it marks what it takes as right as right; when it feels something is wrong, it marks what it takes as wrong as wrong—hence also “the heart takes for itself” (xin zi qu, the mind seizes a standard of its own to judge).

“Er she” is read she; the character is also written she. The same below.

[Commentary]

“Today you set out for Yue—how could you already have arrived there yesterday?” Before the “heart” has become one heart and before fixed views have formed, where could right and wrong come from? Seeing that right and wrong are something that cannot be absent among the myriad things, the perfected person (zhiren) goes along with both sides and does not cling to either pole.

[Sub-commentary]

The road between Wu and Yue is long; it often takes many days to arrive. Setting out only today, how could one have arrived yesterday? This is used as a metaphor: opposition of right and wrong and of self and other are all produced by the deluded, discriminating mind (wangxin).

Only when the mind has already made distinctions do right and wrong appear; only when “setting out on the road” is already there can one speak of “reaching Yue.”

(In other words: the world does not originally contain fixed right and wrong; the mind first erects a standard, and only then do right and wrong and opposition arise.)

[Annotation on the text]

“Xi zhi” (formerly arrived): Cui’s note says xi means “evening/yesterday”; Xiang’s note says xizhe means “yesterday.”

Jia Shifu says: Right and wrong take shape when person meets person and heart meets things in contact and exchange. Yet people often hold a measuring rod for right and wrong in the mind first, then use that rod to call “this” right because it is held right and “that” wrong because it is held wrong. The heart responds to things with inexhaustible change, and right and wrong follow without end. Right and wrong arise because of the human mind—only after the mind already has a standard of right and wrong can one speak of “affirming what one takes as right and denying what one takes as wrong.” This is why “disputes over things” (wulun, each side clinging to its own view and arguing without end) in the Qiwu Lun (Discourse on Equalizing Things) cannot be equalized.

Note

The Way itself has no fixed right and wrong, yet those whose minds are confused insist on drawing lines between right and wrong and treating some opposition as real—as if something were truly “there.” That is to take what is not as what is: treating the empty as solid. Once such confusion takes deep root in the heart, even a sage cannot force it open with external words or suddenly awaken someone. So one can only let things be as they are, without demanding that they “must understand.”

Commentary

The passage above says that in principle there is no absolute right and wrong, while the confused treat distinctions as real—that is “taking the nonexistent as existent,” mistaking the illusory for the real. When attachment lasts long enough, a settled state of delusion forms; even a sage-king like Yu of Xia (son of Gun, father of Qi, who tamed the floods and received the mandate) cannot fully untie another person’s confusion for them. Out of deep compassion for deliverance, Zhuangzi—when nothing else avails—simply “leaves it to its natural course and does not force understanding”: letting people rest in what is inherently so, without imposing intellectual solutions or pressuring them into enlightenment.

Note on the phrase: “Leaving it to its natural course without forcing understanding” is Zhuangzi’s attitude (as passed down in commentarial tradition) toward those who cannot be guided— not arguing over right and wrong with them, not overpowering them with cleverness, but allowing them to transform in their own time.

This passage is saying that speech is not like the wind—the wind only makes a sound, but the person who speaks has something in mind. The problem is that what people say often has no settled verdict: you call it so, he insists it is not; he says it is so, and you feel he is wrong, so who is right and who is wrong cannot finally be pinned down.

So one must ask: Is there really “speech,” or is there in fact nothing that can truly be stated clearly? If human debate is distinguished from the cheeping of nestlings, is there genuine discrimination and reason in it—or none at all?

How does the Dao seem to be hidden away, so that “true” and “false” appear? How does speech seem to be hidden away, so that “right” and “wrong” appear?

How can the Dao “be gone and no longer be there”? How can speech “be there yet fail to stand”?

Zhuangzi then exposes the point: the Dao is obscured by partial, small-scale “achievements” in understanding—people grasp a fragment and treat it as the whole; speech is obscured by florid eloquence and showy phrasing—pretty words hide the original intent. Hence the Confucians and Mohists wrangle over right and wrong: each treats what the other denies as wrong and what the other affirms as what must be criticized.

If one wants to escape this deadlock of “you deny what I affirm, I deny what you affirm,” the best approach is to use “clarity” (ming)—not to be dragged by partial feelings, fixed opinions, or rhetoric, but to let right and wrong show themselves under broader, clearer light (“better to rely on clarity,” the ming Zhuangzi’s later “equalizing things” line pushes toward—illumination and discernment that clarifies, not yet another set of one’s own rights and wrongs).

Commentary. “Guo” means to decide or to treat something as settled and sure. People on this side affirm what those on that side deny; this side denies what that side affirms. Since right and wrong cannot be fixed, how can language ever be fully clear? Thus words alone are not enough to count as established truth. Yet each party brings its own bias, holds to its own view, and speaks from that standpoint—so one cannot say that there is absolutely no “speech” at all.

Gloss (section five). Speech and the peep of a chick still in the shell are the same in essence: whether there is real distinction, or whether anything can be decisively discerned, is hard to determine. Minds under heaven need not agree, yet what people say is not easily made to differ—so right and wrong tangle, and no one knows whose standard to follow.

Commentary. “Bian” means to distinguish or divide. When a young bird is about to hatch and calls inside the egg, that is called gu yin (“chick-in-shell sound”); speech too can be likened to a gu still in the shell. Mutual partiality and unsettled right and wrong—how is that unlike the gu bird’s cry, which has sound but hardly amounts to clear discrimination? If one tries to draw a hard line between ordinary discourse and gu yin, that line probably cannot stand as a genuine distinction either.

Phonetic note. Gu is read by fanqie like ku–dou; Li Yi reads it as gou. Sima Biao says it denotes the cry of nestlings about to break out of the shell.

Commentary (section six). “Wu hu” means “where” or “in what direction.” The Dao that emptily pervades the ten thousand things is neither simply true nor simply false—where could it withdraw so that “genuine” and “sham,” “true” and “false,” appear as separate categories?

Phonetic note. The wu in wu hu is read wu (same below). In one manuscript “true and false” (zhen wei) appears as zhen gui; in Cui Zhuan’s text as zhen ran.

Gloss (section seven). Where is the Dao not present? And where do words hide, such that the name-forms of true and false, right and wrong, all flare up in confusion?

Commentary. The highest teaching and the highest speech are not merely a matter of right versus wrong—where could they withdraw before one could even speak of “there is right, there is wrong”?

Phonetic note. The yan in dao yan is read by fanqie like yu–qian.

Gloss (section eight). (The Dao and speech) are present everywhere.

Commentary. “Cun” means to exist or to be at hand. The great Dao that molds and casts the myriad spirits is wholly pervasive—where could it withdraw before one could speak of “there is right, there is wrong”?

Phonetic note. The yan in dao yan is read by fanqie like yu–qian.

Commentary: “Cun” means to be present, to exist. The Dao, like a potter shaping vessels, turns and flows without rest and reaches everywhere—how could it be pinned to one spot? So it shows up both in what is “false” and in what is “true,” yet you cannot flatly call it “only true” or “only false.”

Note [9]: Each reading can stand.

Commentary [10]: “Small accomplishment” (xiaocheng) means the five virtues of benevolence and righteousness—gaining something only on a narrow, partial path is called small accomplishment. When the times are thin and shallow, people practice only benevolence and righteousness and cannot follow the great Dao; hence it is said that “the Dao is hidden by small accomplishment”—but the Dao itself cannot be hidden. As Laozi said: when the great Dao declines, benevolence and righteousness appear.

Note [11]: The flourish of small accomplishment hides itself in the Dao’s shadow, but the Dao cannot be hidden. Then distinctions of true and false, right and wrong, run in ornate speech yet ought to stop at what is real and fitting; they show clearly in small accomplishment and fade away in “great completeness” (daquan—the full, all-embracing attainment).

Commentary: “Ronghua” (glorious flourish) means clever disputation and fine-sounding language. Clinging to such rhetoric hides the Dao—yet the Dao is not hidden by that. True and false, right and wrong, move in glorious words but should come to rest in fact and what is appropriate; they are visible in small accomplishment and are absorbed in daquan.

Commentary: “Ronghua” again means clever debate and beautiful phrases. Because one gets stuck in florid argument, the utmost words (zhiyan) are blocked. Hence the Laozi says: sincere words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not sincere.

In ancient times there was a man of Zheng named Huan who studied under Mr. Qiu. After three years he had mastered his craft and took the Confucian path. Confucians take Yao and Shun as models and the institutions of King Wen and King Wu of Zhou as their standard; they speak of benevolence and righteousness and distinguish high from low—hence the name Ru (“Confucian”). Huan had a younger brother named Di; Huan brought him into learning too, and Di later became a Mohist. Mohism carries on the tradition of Yu: it honors the worthy, values ritual, advocates frugality and universal love, and will even harm oneself for others’ benefit to save the world—hence the name Mo (“Mohist”). The two were brothers, yet each clung to one teaching and attacked the other; Huan resented his brother and died in a rage. Disputes of “you’re wrong and I’m right” are as old as that; when they turn fierce, they often begin among such “worthy” people—so Zhuangzi treats these two as emblematic of those who stir up public argument. It shows that when the Great Dao (Dao) has declined, the true word goes into hiding, and people are left circling in right and wrong.

Confucians and Mohists attack each other, and everyone under heaven lines up on one side or the other—either Ru or Mo. Then every school of thought surges forward, each holding to its own view, and none can step outside its own circle of right and wrong.

No one under heaven fails to treat themselves as right and others as wrong; others likewise treat you as wrong and themselves as right. So everyone uses “I am right” to affirm themselves and deny others, and uses the standard of “I am wrong” in reverse—to deny others and affirm themselves.

(On pronunciation: in “geng xiang,” “geng” is read like the syllable geng.)

What is called “there is right and there is wrong” is exactly what Confucians and Mohists each want to uphold; what is called “there is no right and there is no wrong” is exactly what Confucians and Mohists oppose. If you now want to stand on the ground that Ru and Mo reject, in order to reject what Ru and Mo affirm, you are in effect explaining “there is no right and there is no wrong.” And the best way to clarify “there is no right and there is no wrong” is to have the Confucian and Mohist camps examine each other again and again, mutually reflecting. Once they do, what was taken as “right” may not truly be right, and what was taken as “wrong” may not truly be wrong; when wrong is pushed to the full extent of what it rejects, there is no absolute wrong; when “right” is pushed to the full extent of what it affirms, there is no absolute “right.”

Commentary (first paragraph)

Most people take others to be wrong and themselves to be right. If you want to turn that upside down—calling what is “not” “is” and what is “is” “not”—the best way is still to use the standards of the Ru and Mo schools in turn, comparing and explaining each against the other. Once you do that, what you took as “right” may not really be right, and what you took as “wrong” may not really be wrong. If what is wrong is not counted as wrong, there is no absolute wrong; if what is right is not counted as right, there is no absolute right.

Commentary (second paragraph)

People are used to treating others as “wrong” and themselves as “right.” If you want to flip “right” into “wrong” and “wrong” into “right,” nothing works better than still pitting “that side” (bi) against “this side” (wo), checking back and forth and illuminating each other. When that is clear, what was rejected as “wrong” is not truly wrong, so there is “no wrong”; what was affirmed as “right” is not truly right, so there is “no right.” With no “right,” there is no “wrong”—from this you can see that the split between right and wrong is largely empty.

Family commentary (Jia shi fu)

Guo Xiang says: Having “is” and having “is not” is what the Ru and Mo each hold as their standard; having “no is” and having “no is not” is what the Ru and Mo each deny in the other. If you treat what Ru and Mo reject as “is” and what they affirm as “is not,” the best approach is still to let Ru and Mo debate each other and illuminate the issue again and again; then what is affirmed as “is” is not truly “is,” and what is rejected as “is not” is not truly “is not.” Read the Mo zi and Mencius passages that refute Yang and Mo: Ru and Mo oppose each other, each clinging to one pole to win. What Mo affirms, Ru rejects. Right and wrong arise from this; “that” and “this” (bi and shi) are distinguished thereby. “That” and “this” are forms of mutual relation; once right and wrong stand as two sides, the right and wrong each side holds is no longer genuine right and wrong, yet the view of “that” and “this” remains. What is meant by “nothing better than making it clear with illumination” (mo ru yi ming) is to take what each of the two sides—the “that” and the “this”—can illuminate, and use them to verify each other. Note: There is disagreement with Guo’s commentary here.

Textual note (Shi wen)

The two characters fan fu (meaning “again and again” / “back and forth”) are read according to the fanqie gloss fang fu fan.

Collation (Jiao)

(1) The character qiu is emended in accordance with the Yufu pian (Fisherman chapter).

From the standpoint of “that” (the other side, the other), nothing is not “that”; from the standpoint of “this” (this side, oneself), nothing is not “this.” If you stay only on the side of “that,” you cannot see “this”; when you return to your own side to understand, you can grasp what “this” is about. So “that” is distinguished from within “this,” and “this” also becomes “this” only in relation to “that”—this is the paired account in which “that” and “this” arise together. Even so, they actually flip as pairs: what has just been born turns toward death, what has just died carries new birth; what was just called “acceptable” becomes “unacceptable,” what was just “unacceptable” becomes “acceptable”; “this” is established because of “not-this,” and “not-this” is established because of “this.”

Therefore the sage does not judge by this biased path of “that” and “this,” but like reflecting heaven’s light, views things from a higher natural clarity—and understands in the spirit of mutual dependence (yin, interdependence). In this sense, “this” is also “that,” and “that” is also “this.” On the side of “that” there is one set of right and wrong; on the side of “this” there is another set of right and wrong. Is there in the world a fixed “that” and “this”? Or is there in fact no fixed “that” and “this”? When “that” and “this” are no longer forced into two opposing poles, this is called the pivotal point of the Dao (daoshu). Once the pivot rests in the center of the circle (huanzhong—the hub, the place of neither bias), it can respond to endless change—“this” opens into an inexhaustible line, and “not-this” opens into an inexhaustible line. So it is better to illuminate things with clarity (ming—clear light, penetrating insight).

Using “finger” to show that “a finger is not a finger” is not as good as using “not-finger” to show that “a finger is not a finger”; using “horse” to show that “a horse is not a horse” is not as good as using “not-horse” to show that “a horse is not a horse.” Extending this, Heaven and Earth may be taken as one designation (one standard, one overarching name), and the ten thousand things as one “horse” (one general kind, one principle).

Note (Guo Xiang): Each thing treats itself as “this” (shi), so there is no side that is not “this”; each treats the other as “that” (bi), so there is no side that is not “that.” If there were no “that,” the world would have no “this”; if there were no “this,” the world would have no “that.” Only when “that” and “this” are both dissolved can one merge in mystery with the Great Dao.

Sub-commentary (Cheng Xuanying): The note above already exhausts the meaning; there is no need to gloss each line again.

Sub-commentary (Cheng Xuanying): When one is viewed as “that” from the side of “that,” one cannot see oneself; knowing only one’s own side as “this,” one takes it to be truly right. All things are one-sided in this way—the examples all follow this pattern. If one can see both how others see and how one sees, one will not stubbornly cling to “this” and “not-this.”

Note (Guo Xiang): Things all have a partial aspect; one often fails to see what others see and insists solely on what one alone knows. To know only what one knows is to be self-righteous; once self-righteous, one judges the other side as “wrong.” Hence “that” arises from “this,” and “this” also depends on “that”—“that” and “this” mutually depend before they come to be.

Sub-commentary (Cheng Xuanying): “That” is paired with “this,” and “this” (right) with “not-this” (wrong)—such paired phrasing is common in the text. Saying “that arises from this” uses spare wording and subtle meaning, taking one angle of “that” to instruct the reader: the aim is to raise “that” to clarify “this,” and “this” to clarify “not-this.” “That,” “this,” “this,” and “not-this” appear only through mutual entanglement; pursued to the root in analysis, their substance is empty.

Section 4 (Guo Xiang’s commentary)

The shift between life and death is like the rotation of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The forms of living and dying differ, yet each rests in what it meets, and in that respect there is no difference. Those who are alive take “life” to be life; if the dead also took “life” to be death, there would be no “life.” Those who are alive take “death” to be death; if the dead took “death” to be life, there would be no “death.” With neither “life” nor “death,” neither “acceptable” nor “unacceptable,” the right-and-wrong disputes of the Confucian and Mohist schools cannot be fully aligned with either side; as for each keeping to its place and resting in what it meets, I cannot deliberately stand apart from either side either.

(Cheng Xuanshi’s subcommentary)

“Fang” here means “about to” or “in the process of.” The discussion concerns mutual right and wrong; it does not differ in essence from talk of life and death. Life and death alternate like cold and heat succeeding one another. The living treat life as life; if the dead also treated life as death, that would be like one side taking “this” as right and the other taking “this” as wrong. From this we see: “wrong” appears because of “right,” and “right” appears because of “wrong.” If one called something right because of wrong, there would be no fixed “right”; if one called something wrong because of right, there would be no fixed “wrong.” Thus there is neither wrong nor right, neither life nor death, neither unacceptable nor acceptable—what is there to oppose to one another?

Section 5 (Guo Xiang’s commentary)

A person of broad mind follows the world’s right and wrong and no longer clings in the heart to one side’s right and wrong. So by not traveling the road of contending over right and wrong, the trouble of right and wrong does not miss its mark; this is directly seeing that each thing is so by Nature (tian) and not forcibly changing or stripping away how it originally is.

(Cheng Xuanshi’s subcommentary)

“Tian” means what is so of itself, the natural. The sage who penetrates and awakens does not infer “wrong” from “right” in a straight line; he sets the mind in empty stillness and clear openness and illuminates with the wisdom of the natural. Only by following the world’s right and wrong does one reach “no wrong” and “no right”; in the end this is not seizing “being” and separately proving a “non-being.”

Sixth annotation

I too am denied or treated as “wrong” by “that side,” exactly as they treat “that side” in their own terms.

Seventh annotation

That side, in the same way, holds firmly that it alone is in the right.

Commentary

What I take to be right can still be judged wrong by the other; what I judge wrong in the other, the other likewise treats me as wrong while taking themselves to be right.

Eighth annotation

This side is self-assured and at the same time condemns that side; that side is self-assured and at the same time condemns this side—so on this side and on that side, each stance carries its own “right” and its own “wrong.”

Commentary

This side is self-assured, and that side is self-assured too; this side rejects the other, and that side rejects this one; hence each has one “right” and one “wrong.”

Ninth annotation

(Same point as above: each side clings to one “right” and one “wrong.”)

Commentary

(Same as above.)

Ninth annotation (continued)

If you now try to fix “that” as that, that side still insists it is right; if you try to fix “this” as this, this is still treated by the other as “that” and rejected—so whether “that” exists or does not exist has not yet been settled.

Commentary

“this” and “that,” “right” and “wrong,” stand in mutual opposition; push the analysis further and the whole character of things stays unsettled and insubstantial. What one takes as “right” from one angle is not “without”; what the other denies from another angle is not “with.” Being, non-being, that, and this cannot be finally decided.

Textual note

In bi fu, “fu” is read with the fanqie gloss fu-you (same below).

Tenth annotation

“Ou” means paired, opposed, relative. “That” sits in a relationship of opposition, whereas the sage looks along both sides without clinging to either. Thus the mindless one is in silent union with things and never stands in a fixed opposition to the myriad things of the world. (Shu: vital point, hinge, pivot.) To dwell at such a pivot and penetrate the deepest mystery is to respond to a world that has no fixed place or direction.

Commentary

“Ou” is opposition; “shu” is the pivot. In silent union with things, one does not oppose the world under Heaven (“shu” is the sense of the crucial hinge). Holding the pivot, penetrating the deepest mystery, one answers endless change and a realm without fixed coordinates.

Commentary. “Ou” (pairing) means mutual relation and opposition; “shu” (pivot) means the crucial point. When one sees that both sides are empty in themselves and that right and wrong are all illusory appearances, gathers the spirit and sees in solitude with nothing in the world set against one, one may be said to have joined the dark ultimate and obtained the gist of the “pivot of the Dao” (daoshu). An earlier passage asked about being and non-being without yet deciding what to take or reject; here it further shows that “this side and that side” are empty as they stand. The former is shallower, the latter deeper, so this comes later.

Gloss on the text. In Daoshu, “shu” is read as in the fanqie “chi zhu fan,” meaning the vital point. “To respond” is the same ying as in responding to things, with the same pronunciation as in the note above. What follows can be read by sense; phonetic notes will not be repeated.

Note 11 — Annotation. Right and wrong turn back on each other in cycles without end, hence the name “ring” (huan). “Hub of the ring” (huanzhong) is emptiness: treating right and wrong as the ring and grasping its “middle” is to be without “is” and without “is not”—without right and without wrong. Only when there is neither right nor wrong can one respond to right and wrong. Because right and wrong never end, responsive adaptation never ends either.

Commentary. Absolute non-reliance and self-transformation alone are the root of the Dao and the core of practice, hence “pivot.” The ring image has two openings (the two poles of right and wrong); the middle indicates the one thread of true emptiness. The hub of the ring is empty, making clear the state without right and without wrong. Right and wrong are inexhaustible, and so is response. (Jia Shifu: Right and wrong both transform while the Dao abides, hence “pivot of the Dao.” Grasp the Dao pivot and roam in the hub of the ring—“middle” is emptiness. Right and wrong chase each other in reversal like a ring; roaming in that empty space, not driven by right and wrong, one can answer what is endless. Qing Fan cites an old gloss: the inside of a round ring is empty and its body has no outer limit, hence “hub of the ring.”)

Note 12 — Annotation. Under heaven, nothing fails to take itself as right and nothing fails to treat others as wrong, so each “this is right” pairs with a “this is wrong”—the “two courses” (liang xing) are endless. Only one who enters empty nature and gains the middle is vast and without clinging, and rides that to roam.

Commentary. Things all deem themselves right; inwardly empty, the body has no bound, hence “hub of the ring.”

[12]

Most people in the world believe they are right and others are wrong, so “this is correct” and “that is not correct” each hold to one side, and the two sides can argue without end. Only someone who in emptiness awakens to the central way and no longer clings rigidly to right and wrong can have a broad mind, be free of obstruction, and move through that realm with ease.

Further explanation: Things all tend toward “I alone am right,” so “is” can be argued without limit; they also tend toward “you alone are wrong,” so “is not” can be argued without limit. Only when one lightly sets aside self and other, right and wrong, and finds the pivot—like standing at the hub of a circle so neither side can pull you—can one truly follow living beings and wander with them without being worn down by dispute over right and wrong.

[13]

“Finger” means the finger; “horse” here means the token used in gambling games; “analogy” means comparison or illustration. The point is: people each cling to their own right and wrong, to “you” and “me” as not the same, so they take their own finger to compare with another’s finger—and the other’s finger is called “not a finger”; then they take the other’s finger to compare with theirs—and their finger, on the other side, becomes “not a finger.” The same reasoning applies to “horse.”

Why are “finger” and “horse” singled out among all such talk? Because, taken from what is nearest, nothing is more intimate than the finger; taken from what is far, to argue victory and defeat nothing is more typical than the “horse” in gaming. These two examples are used to make clear how right and wrong are relative and can overturn each other.

Annotation

People often assume they are right and others wrong—this is the usual discriminating mind that splits “self” from “other.” If we use “my finger” to stand for “your finger,” then on your side that finger, relative to mine, gets called “not a finger”; this uses “finger” to show that “finger” cannot be fixed as finger. If we then use “your finger” to stand for “my finger,” my finger on your side likewise becomes “not a finger.” Again this uses “not-finger” to show that finger is not a fixed finger. To see that there is neither absolute “is” nor absolute “is not,” nothing works better than each side repeatedly taking the other as its analogy. When both keep analogizing in this way, “that” and “I” are alike trapped in “thinking ourselves right” and alike trapped in “mutually denying each other.” Alike in mutual denial, the world has no settled “is”; alike in self-righteousness, the world has no settled “is not.” How do we know? If “is” were truly is, the world should not still have people calling it “is not”; if “is not” were truly is not, the world should not still have people calling it “is.” Now right and wrong have no master and drift in confusion—clearly everyone trusts only partial views yet mistakes them for agreement. Looking up or down, nothing escapes this pattern. Therefore the perfect person (zhiren—the one Zhuangzi says is united with the Dao and does not cling to right and wrong) knows that Heaven and Earth can be taken as one finger and the ten thousand things as one horse, and so the heart is vast and at peace; Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things each keep their place, alike finding what suits them, without clinging to “is” and “is not.”

Commentary

Though Heaven and Earth are vast, one finger can sum up their principle; though the ten thousand things are many, one horse can exhaust their meaning. How do we know? When “that,” “this,” right, and wrong are repeatedly used to explain one another, what is called “is” is not truly is and what is called “is not” is not truly is not. From this we know that the two spheres of Heaven and Earth and the myriad things have no fixed “is” and “is not.”

Textual notes

Cui Yan’s comment: “Finger—one limb among the hundred parts; horse—one thing among the ten thousand things.” “Haoran” (vast and at ease): read hao with the hu initial (hulao fan).

One may say “acceptable” when it is acceptable, and “unacceptable” when it is not. The Dao completes its work through walking and practice; things show themselves as “so” (ran) in whatever way people name them. Why call them “so”? On the side of “so,” they are so. Why call them “not so”? On the side of “not,” they are not so. Things inherently have both their “so-ness” and their “acceptability”; from a certain angle, nothing is absolutely “not so,” and nothing is absolutely “unacceptable.”

So the text uses this to explain the point: a blade of grass and a pillar, an ugly woman and Xishi (the famed beauty), the vast and the bizarrely different—all can, on the Dao, be understood as “one.” What is called “division” is also a kind of “completion”; what is called “completion” already implies “destruction.” In general, things have no absolute completion or destruction; in the end they can again be understood as one.

Only one who has attained thorough penetration (tong) grasps “being one with the One,” and then does not cling stubbornly to a private view but settles the self in ordinary daily use. “Common” (yong) means “use”; use is penetration; penetration is attainment (de); when one attains appropriately, one is close to the realm of the Dao. Resting thus—stopping without having to ask why—this is what is called the Dao.

If one toils the spirit and forces everything into a single “one” without understanding that sameness was there all along, that is called “three in the morning” (zhao san). What is “three in the morning”? A keeper of monkeys doled out chestnuts and said, “Three in the morning and four at night.” The monkeys were furious. He then said, “Then four in the morning and three at night.” The monkeys were delighted. The name and the actual amount did not change, yet joy and anger were led about—this too is because people hold only to the scheme of “right/wrong” (shi/fei).

Therefore the sage harmonizes right and wrong and rests in the “Heavenly equal measure” (Tian jun)—the natural balance and dividing line—and this is called “walking both paths” (liang xing): allowing both sides to proceed in parallel without clinging to either.

[1] [Note]

What seems coherent and agreeable in one’s own view is called “acceptable” (ke).

[2] [Note]

What seems incoherent and disagreeable in one’s own view is called “unacceptable” (bu ke).

[3] [Commentary]

The principle itself has no fixed right and wrong, yet particular things have their compliant and contrary aspects. What accords with one’s own mind is called “acceptable”; what goes against one’s own mind is called “unacceptable.” When both compliance and opposition are held with no fixed grasp, one can see that “acceptable” and “unacceptable” are both deluded distinctions.

[4] [Note]

There is nothing that fails to be accomplished; there is nothing that does not succeed.

[Commentary]

The Great Dao is vast: it nurtures all beings and pervades the ten thousand things, and there is nothing it cannot accomplish. Thus one may succeed within “acceptable” without needing to treat “acceptable” as something real; one may succeed within “unacceptable” without needing to treat “unacceptable” as something real.

[5] [Note]

There is nothing that is not “so”; there is nothing that does not accord with “so.”

[Commentary]

Human dispositions turn things upside down; failing to see compliance and opposition, people vainly tally right and wrong and mistakenly posit a “not so.” When mind and things are both empty and self and world are both illusory, what “so”-principle is there to cling to and call “so”? What real “not so” is there to insist on as “not so”?

[6] [Note]

Each person takes what he calls “so” to be so, and each takes what he calls “acceptable” to be acceptable.

[Commentary]

Emotional fixation creates blockage; touched by circumstances, one is lost, and must stubbornly assert that there is “so” and that there is “acceptable.” How could one know that what is named “acceptable” turns into “unacceptable,” and what is named “so” turns into “not so”?

[7] [Commentary]

The myriad beings are in turmoil; each clings to a private view, each makes his own “so” into so, each makes his own “acceptable” into acceptable.

[Explanatory note on the text]

Cui’s edition, after “there is nothing that is not so, nothing that is not acceptable,” adds: “One may be ‘acceptable’ within the acceptable, but one cannot force ‘acceptable’ within the unacceptable; one may be ‘unacceptable’ within the unacceptable, but one cannot force ‘unacceptable’ within the acceptable.” (That is: in what is acceptable one can rightly call it acceptable; in what is unacceptable one cannot stubbornly call it acceptable; in what is unacceptable one can rightly call it unacceptable; in what is acceptable one cannot stubbornly call it unacceptable.)

This passage explains what “equalizing things” (qi wu) means in the Zhuangzi, and why one can say “the Dao penetrates as one.”

“Nothing is not so; nothing is not permissible” (Cui Zhu’s version also has further lines on the back-and-forth of “permissible” and “impermissible”): In gist, from a given perspective nothing is simply “wrong,” and nothing is absolutely “impossible”—“permissible” and “impermissible” shift with standpoint and use; one cannot cling to a single fixed standard.

Guo Xiang’s note on “If a beam lies crosswise while a pillar stands upright…”: To speak of “equalizing” is not to make all shapes and rules identical. Beams are meant to lie horizontally and pillars to stand vertically; an ugly, diseased person and the beauty Xishi cannot be measured by the same yardstick. So when one speaks of differences such as horizontal versus vertical, ugly versus beautiful, broad versus narrow, strange versus ordinary, forced versus deceptive, odd versus bizarre: the myriad things of the world are innately diverse; yet as long as each “is what it is and is permissible as it is”—each exists according to its own nature and holds valid in its own way—from the vantage of the Dao, in nature they still interpenetrate, hence the Dao penetrates as one.

The sub-commentary (Cheng shu) further uses eight examples to break attachment: ting is the roof beam, ying the pillar; li denotes an ugly person, Xishi the favorite of King Wu of Wu; broad, narrow, strange, forced, deceptive, and bizarre are all nominal distinctions (mingxiang) erected by human discriminating mind. If one fixates on “this is, that is not,” “permissible, impermissible,” one clings to one side. Viewed through the profound Dao (xuandao), there are originally not two dharmas; though fair and foul differ in ten thousand ways, the disposition of each finding its own place is but one—each settles in its station and each suits its fit—so one still says the Dao penetrates as one.

The phonetic glosses in the Shiwen mainly give readings: e.g. ting is read ting or ting, meaning roof beam; ying is read ying, meaning pillar.

Interpretation (shiwen)

The two words qi fen (“its division” or “the split”) can be read straightforwardly according to their surface meaning.

Commentary [10] (zhu)

What I take to be cheng—completion or achievement—may from the other party’s angle be called hui—ruin or destruction.

Expanded commentary [10] (shu)

What counts as cheng for one person may count as hui for another. The gap comes from how a thing is used: turning scattered fur into brush bristles is cheng for that end, while cutting down a tree to build a house is hui from the tree’s side, and cases like these multiply.

Commentary [11] (zhu)

cheng and hui arise when one sees only one’s own side and not the other’s. Hence there is no fixed cheng or hui, just as there is no fixed right or wrong.

Expanded commentary [11] (shu)

cheng, hui, right, and wrong all spring from partiality and from sticking to one extreme. If cheng and hui were not fixed to begin with, then right and wrong have no absolute owner; one need not cling to cheng and hui and can instead pass through and unite them.

Interpretation (shiwen)

In the phrase fu tong, the syllable fu was read in the old pronunciation manuals with the fuyou fanqie notation (a traditional way of marking how the character was pronounced in antiquity).

Expanded commentary [12] (shu)

Yu means to lodge or entrust; yong means function or use. Only someone who has penetrated the Great Dao (the Way), gathers spirit inward, and takes profound principle as a mirror can drop dualistic bias and unite opposites. For that reason, even when there is achievement one does not keep it for oneself; once something has been used, one forgets the using and entrusts its efficacy to the many people and the myriad things.

Commentary [13] (zhu)

One who is penetrating is not tied to a single side, so one suddenly forgets the self and lodges present use in “self-use.” “Self-use” means each thread runs smoothly and each thing finds its proper place.

Expanded commentary [13] (shu)

To hold great merit yet attribute it to outer things, to guide the myriad people yet lodge use in the crowd of talents—perhaps only the sage can do this. Thus one responds to things without a grasping mind; spirit stays bright and unstuck. That can be called silently merging with the true Dao, like gaining the dark pearl in the Red Water—a traditional image for attaining the utmost Way.

Commentary [14] (zhu)

Here ji means to exhaust or to reach the limit. The ultimate principle is wholly present in each thing’s attaining for itself.

Expanded commentary [14] (shu)

(Continuing the thought above.) The ultimate principle is wholly present in self-attainment: responding to stimulus without a fixed mind, spirit penetrating without obstruction, silently embodying the true Dao—again like obtaining the dark pearl in the Red Water.

Commentary (on the character ji)

Here ji is read as jin (to reach the utmost, to exhaust). “Attaining” means that inwardly one does not rely on fixation on “self,” and outwardly one does not cling to external things: no deliberate thought, no contrived action—cutting off forced learning and dependence on external conditions. What is attained then is natural accord without a fixed cause, in line with principle, and thus the subtle reason can be fully exhausted.

Textual note (pronunciation)

In Ji yi (“almost”), ji is pronounced like ji (same as below). Xu Miao gives the fanqie reading juyi fan (an old fanqie gloss).

[15] Annotation

One who has attained thorough understanding simply follows circumstances and does not add extra contrivance.

Commentary

One who has attained thorough understanding of the Dao neither acts with deliberate effort nor harbors private intent, and so can move with the turn of “right” and “wrong” without being bound by “right” and “wrong,” and with the distinction of “that” and “self” without being trapped in “that” and “self.” One only accords with what is natural—how could one still stir emotion or deploy stratagems?

[16] Annotation

What the thorough adept follows as “right”—is it because he knows that he follows because it is good? He does not know why he follows; he simply naturally follows. That is what is called the Dao.

Commentary

Yier is a connective that carries the previous line and leads into the next. The perfected person has no fixed scheming: when there is stimulus, there is response—like a clear mirror reflecting things, like an empty valley echoing sound—following the changes of the myriad things and influencing living beings, neither knowing why it is so nor knowing why one responds. How could one act from likes and dislikes or from calculations of benefit and harm? Using “method” (fa) according to person and situation may be called the Dao of spontaneity (ziran’s Dao).

Textual note

The three words wei zhi dao (“called the Dao”): Xiang Xiu and Guo Xiang break the text here. Cui Zuan reads wei zhi dao lao and explains: following spontaneity is the manifestation of the Dao’s functioning.

[17] Commentary

The mysterious Dao and the body of pure unity are constantly clear and still—not something reached only after mental scheming and measure, and then called “nonduality.” The foolish strain their spirit and thought and, by chance, use verbal disputation to seek “oneness”; that is not far from the state of failing to reach “oneness,” and it is unreliable. They do not know that ultimate principle of itself merges and equalizes—why must one arrange things in the mind before it counts as “nonduality”?

On [18] (Commentary)

This passage uses a parable to make its point. The commentator on the family tradition says that the phrase “morning three” (zhao san) is meant to illustrate something by that very story. The acorns (xu) are handed out in the morning: when the monkeys get four in the morning they are pleased; when they get three they are angry. In their eyes only that small immediate share matters—so this is what is called yin (turning with circumstances, being pulled by outer things). The commentary says that “mixing all things into one whole and taking ‘the One’ as the goal” cannot mean that yin is simply “becoming one with the One.” To read it that way in a single sentence is a serious mistake.

On [19] (Note)

Someone who truly understands is one with the One—why strain the spirit with deliberate effort? If you wear out shen (spirit) just to hold on to “the One,” that is not reliable; you are no different from those who cannot unite with the One, and no different from the troop of monkeys being tricked—each follows its own preference and thinks itself right.

Commentary

This explains the parable above. Ju means macaque; fu means to give; xu is the acorn-like fruit, like a chestnut but smaller.

The Liezi tells it this way: In the state of Song there was an old man who kept monkeys. He knew their minds well and played tricks on them, saying: “I will give you xu. Three in the morning and four at night—is that enough?” The monkeys all rose up angry. He then said: “Then make it four in the morning and three at night—is that enough?” The monkeys all lay down pleased. Whether it is “three in the morning, four at night” or “four in the morning, three at night,” the total for the day is still seven—the name changes but nothing is actually lost, yet they alternate between joy and anger. That is the confusion of being fooled. It is the same kind of thing as “each follows its own liking and thinks itself correct.” Likewise, exhausting the heart and spirit in argument, forcing all things to be called “one,” and taking “the One” as the destination—how is that different from the monkeys’ delusion?

In antiquity, people distinguished higher and lower levels of what “knowing” could reach. How high could it go? Some pushed knowledge to the limit by holding that there had never been a separate layer of “things” at all—that was taken as the utmost, with nowhere further to climb. A step lower were those who granted that things existed but denied that boundaries or divisions (feng) had yet appeared. Still lower were those who admitted boundaries but held that the oppositions of “this” and “not-this,” right and wrong, had not yet arisen.

Once those oppositions of right and wrong came into the open, the Dao was cut apart and diminished; when the Dao was diminished, private feelings and partial attachments took shape. Is there truly “completion” and “loss,” or is there neither completion nor loss? If one insists on completion and loss, one ends up like Zhao Wen of old: sometimes playing the zither, sometimes leaving it untouched—binding skill and reputation to the ledger of gain and loss. Zhao Wen strummed the qin, Music Master Kuang beat time with his staff, and Hui Shi leaned against a parasol tree to debate; the three men’s brilliance nearly reached the extreme, and each lived out the fullness of his years, which is why later generations often cite them as examples.

They acted as they did because they were passionately devoted to one art or one doctrine and wanted to distinguish themselves from others; because of that devotion, they also wanted to explain and argue it through. Yet some matters ought not to be “clarified” by disputation at all; forcing clarity through debate left Hui Shi mired in the puzzles of “hard and white” and related name-theory, and his son remained tangled in literary form and logic, never attaining in a lifetime what could truly be called “completion.” Does that count as completion? By their own measure, even someone like me could count as complete. If even that does not count as completion, then one may say: between outer things and oneself, there was never any fixed, inherent “completion” to begin with.

That equivocal, neither-deadly-certain nor casually skeptical “light of slippery doubt” is precisely the state the sage seeks to preserve. The practice is not to treat fixed opinions as instruments of truth, but to lodge the heart in ordinary daily use—this is what is meant by “using clarity” (yi ming): to illuminate without clinging.

[1] Commentary

“Zhi” means reaching the utmost peak or perfection. The sages of antiquity applied wisdom in a way that was empty, still, and mysterious; though they mingled with the dust and shared the common world, inwardly they had no discriminating mind, and in action they did not violate stillness—they constantly guarded the root of true subtlety. What “that to which one arrives” actually refers to will be explained point by point below.

[2] Commentary

This is a rhetorical question: in what realm can one be said to have “reached the summit” (zao ji)?

[3] Annotation

One can forget Heaven and Earth and leave all things behind: outwardly one does not perceive the vastness of the cosmos, inwardly one does not feel the existence of one’s own body—thus one can be carefree and unburdened, go along with things, and respond to everything without obstruction.

[3] Commentary

“Wei shi” means “never yet” or “has not yet.” All names and forms in the world, and all dharmas, cannot truly be said to exist; self and things, inner and outer, are all emptied together. The four phrases (you, wu, fei you, fei wu, and the like) are not clung to—utterly empty and still. The teaching stops here; there is no need to add another layer. This answers the earlier question: “reaching the utmost” means precisely this.

[4] Annotation

Though one cannot yet forget every distinction, one can at least forget the opposition between “this” and “that.”

[4] Commentary

Those who in the first stages of learning are already close to great worthies and near the sage’s realm may still see the difference between “empty” and “full,” but they have not yet fixed their view rigidly.

[5] Annotation

Though one cannot yet forget “this” and “that” entirely, one can already forget the right and wrong between them.

[5] Commentary

The “common desires” that attach to objects are hard to remove completely; clinging to things has already lightened. Discriminating confusion is comparatively easier to dismiss; views about right and wrong can still be let go.

[6] Annotation

Only when there is no right and wrong is there fulfillment.

[6] Commentary

Having wrong and having right is the shallow view of the vulgar; having no wrong and no right is the mirror of the adept. From this we know: once one fixates on self and other and exalts the self, the utmost Dao is obscured; when right and wrong cease, the subtle principle is fully revealed.

[7] Annotation

When the Dao is impaired, emotion inclines to one side, love congeals into attachment; one cannot yet forget love and release selfish intent, and so one cannot reach the realm of mystical unity with self and other.

[7] Commentary

Once the empty and mysterious Dao is damaged, the emotion of attachment arises and sticks.

Note on [Eight]

Whether “being” (you) and “non-being” (wu) are one way or another has never been something that can be stated with final clarity; one can only speak up to this point and no further.

Commentary

“Guo” here means the conclusion reached in disputation. The Dao itself neither increases nor decreases, yet things have their lack and their fullness. When people fix on love and hate toward things, or on their ruin and completion, they suppose the Dao has been diminished—but the Dao has not actually suffered any loss. A hypothetical line of argument is used to make the point: if “being” and “non-being” cannot be settled once and for all, then “loss” and “completion,” in principle, are not fixed facts that can be recorded as simply true or false.

Note on [Nine]

No sound can be fully present all at once. Whether one blows a pipe or plucks a string, however elaborate the technique, many tones are inevitably left out. The person who holds the tuning peg and adjusts the strings is trying to bring one particular tone to the fore; when one tone is emphasized, the others are omitted, whereas if one does not insist on emphasizing any one tone, all five tones can be there together. Thus: seeking completion and thereby incurring loss—that is Zhaowen playing the zither; not seeking completion and therefore incurring no loss—that is Zhaowen not playing the zither.

Commentary

Zhaowen—surname Zhao, personal name Wen—was an ancient master of the zither. Though his playing was artful, when he played the shang note he lost the jiao, and when he played the gong he lost the zhi; it was better to leave off playing, and then the five tones would naturally be whole. This also shows: where there is completion there is loss; when the heart holds a fixed mind bent on “completion,” it turns away from the Dao. Where there is no completion and no loss, forgetting crafty cleverness is what allows one to align with the true Dao.

Phonetic gloss

In “ke sheng,” “sheng” is read shēng; in “cao xian,” “cao” is read with the qie fanqie qi-dao; in “zhi yue,” “yue” is read yào; Sima Biao says Zhaowen was an ancient adept at the zither.

Note on [Ten]

“Ji” means to exhaust or reach the limit. These three figures—the sort of debaters and virtuosi represented by Huizi, Zhaowen, and Shi Kuang—all wanted to make clear what others had left unclear, so their wisdom was spent and their bodies weary, their spirits drained—some leaning on a staff as if to doze, others resting against a parasol tree with eyes closed.

Commentary: Shi Kuang, styled Ziyue, was the music master of Duke Ping of Jin and deeply versed in pitch and rhythm. Here zhi means to support or prop up; ce is the stick used to beat the drum, or alternatively the stick used to keep time. As for ju wu (“reclining on wu wood”), some commentators take wu as the zither, but that need not be correct today. Since Zhiwen was already skilled at the zither, how could two people perform the same art together? Moreover, the classics record no tradition that Huishi was adept at the zither. So ju wu most likely means simply leaning on a table or stand of parasol-tree (wu) wood while discoursing on principle—much like yin ji (“hidden/reclining table”). Ji also carries the sense of “exhaustion” or “limit.” Zhiwen excelled at the zither, Shi Kuang at pitch and rhythm, and Huishi at debating names and categories. The three men’s gifts were inborn; each displayed his strength to the world. When people failed to understand, they themselves grew weary in body and mind—so one might prop himself with staff and beat-stick and doze, or lean on a table with eyes closed. Their accomplishments went no further than that.

Textual notes: On zhi ce: Sima Biao says zhi is to pillar or support; ce is a staff. Cui says it is raising the staff to beat time. On ju wu: Wu is read like wu (I). Sima Biao says wu is the zither; Cui says it is zither and lute. On zhi zhi: Zhi is read like zhi (wisdom). On er ming: Ming is read wang qian fan (for the closing of the eyes).

Note [11]: They relied on being in their prime, so they could last long; otherwise they would soon have been exhausted.

Commentary: People like Huishi, in youth and vigor, could bear form and intellect; in old age their powers no longer flourished, and in time they were bound to suffer hardship.

Textual notes: On gu zai zhi mo nian: Cui says it is written in today’s sense (i.e., “in their later years”).

Note [12]: The three cared only for the one thing each mastered and took themselves to differ from ordinary people.

Commentary: Each of the three was sunk in his own pursuit and savoring it, eager to parade his skill and stand apart from the crowd.

[1-3]

Commentary: To display one’s own views clearly before the crowd is to want others to share and affirm the same path.

Exegesis: The reason one wears out body and mind yet stays caught up in it is the wish to put one’s own Daoist arts plainly on show for everyone.

[1-4]

Commentary: This is like playing a reed pipe to an ox—the ox cannot understand at all. When the other party never truly grasps it, one’s own arts in the end can only remain dim and misunderstood.

Exegesis: “The other” means ordinary people; “what can be understood” means what can be made clear. Jian and Bai (Hard and White) refers to the sort of disputation associated with Gongsun Long—such as “a white horse is not a horse” and “hard and white”: Gongsun Long was a man of Zhao, famous in the Warring States period for puzzles of that kind; disciples such as Kong Chuan could win on eloquence yet not necessarily win assent in the heart. Things differ in endowed nature and in what they love, so those who know the paths of the qin, the se, the drum, and masters such as Zhaowen do not all follow one line—something ordinary people cannot grasp at once. To insist on display when the other clearly does not understand leaves both sides still in the dark; this is much like clinging to “hard and white” or “spear and shield (mao dun)” disputation to bewilder the world—however fluent the debate, it often has words but no solid principle.

Textual notes (sound and meaning): On Jian Bai: Sima Biao took it as the debate over “hard stone” and “white horse”; he also said Gongsun Long had related doctrines, called jian bai. Cui said the same. Others took “spear and shield (mao dun)” doctrine as “hard” and disputing the name “white horse” as “white.” Lu Wenchao: fa is the shield, also written fu, same pronunciation. On gu huang (reed pipe): huang read like huang.

[1-5]

Commentary: Zhaowen the qin master’s son then carried on his father’s line of learning, and in the end likewise achieved no real fulfillment.

Exegesis: Lun means the thread or leading strand of a matter. The point is: Zhaowen’s son inherited his father’s enterprise and followed that thread to the end, yet lived out his years without great accomplishment. If even a birth son fared so, how much less should outsiders or other households dare to impose their own arts on others at will?

Explanatory Notes on the Character lun

In the Shiwen (philological commentary), lun is read as lun (same pronunciation, different graph for “order” or “ethics”). Cui Zhan says it means the strings of the qin and se zithers.

Yu Yue argues that although the Shiwen reads lun as lun and Cui takes it to mean zither strings, that still does not fit the following phrase “therefore ending with Wen’s strings.” Guo Xiang’s commentary says Zhao Wen’s son was continuing the “thread” (xu) that King Wen had left—there lun is glossed as xu (“continuation, thread”). If we press the wording: above we have “because they clarified what was not theirs to clarify, they ended in the obscurity of ‘hard and white’”—“obscurity” (mei) and “lun” should be paired in parallel. In the Xicizhuan (Commentary on the Appended Phrases) of the Zhouyi (Book of Changes), “therefore able to extend (mi lun) the Way of Heaven and Earth,” Jing Fang glosses lun as “to know.” In the Huainanzi, “Explaining the Mountains,” “using the small to clarify the large, using the near to discuss the far,” Gao You glosses lun as “to know.” In classical texts lun and lun (discourse/know) are often used interchangeably. In the Huainanzi, lun is set against ming (clarify/know); here “ending with Wen’s lun” means ending with what King Wen had ming—what he had clarified and known—in other words “ending with Wen’s ming.” Those people should not have forced ming in a one-sided specialty, so Hui Shi and others ended in the mei (obscurity) of “hard and white”; Zhao Wen’s son in turn ended in what King Wen had ming, again “clarifying when they should not clarify,” hence the text says “all their lives without accomplishment.” Guo Xiang’s note does not fully bring out this point.

[Commentary]

These three, though they sought ming in the other party (or in that side), the other party in the end had no ming, so for a lifetime they could not speak of “accomplishment” (cheng). If the state of these three counts as cheng, then we who are “not accomplished” can equally be called cheng.

[Sub-commentary]

Here “I” (wo) means ordinary people, the multitude. If the three masters differ from the multitude and call themselves cheng, then the multitude, differing from the three masters, can likewise be called cheng.

[One-Seven] [Commentary]

Each thing can clarify itself, yet need not clarify the other. If you call “the other has not understood” “not accomplished,” then among all things none can be said to have “accomplished” in relation to one another. Therefore the sage does not use his own strengths to press others down, nor abandons himself to chase external things only; he follows each thing’s situation and lets each bring forth what it can (each keeps its proper place and tacitly matches its capacity), so that uses are fully drawn out and nothing is left out. Now the Ru, Mo, and Ming schools want to hold up what they favor as a standard for all to see—is that not arrogant?

[One-Seven] [Exegesis]

If the three masters and the myriad things relate to one another yet none grants the other “accomplishment,” then among the multitude and the three masters, none has “accomplished” relative to the others.

[One-Eight] [Commentary]

The sage has no fixed “self.” Toward slippery confusion and dazzling display that bewilders judgment, he draws boundaries and each keeps its share; toward the vast, uncanny, and bizarre beyond ordinary convention, he passes through to unity and does not cling to one side. He lets every difference rest where it rests; the multitude each keeps what they take as “right,” so the self need not force things, and the uses of the myriad things naturally each find their place. Things each serve themselves—where is there an absolute “right” and “wrong”? Thus even wild deviations and twisted oddities can be followed in their turn, lodging function in each thing’s self-use; uses are myriad yet each stays distinct.

[One-Eight] [Exegesis]

The sage, one with the Dao in virtue and with sun and moon in clarity, can hide his traces among ordinary people and gather his light in meeting things, never dazzling the kinds or unsettling the living, nor leading people by his own eminence. He keeps each within the limit of their proper share and forgets himself in the great accord with the myriad things, lodging “use” in the talents of the group. Such movement of mind may be called sagely clarity and true knowing.

There is a passage here—does it belong to the same sort as what was said earlier, or not? If “the same sort” and “not the same sort” are both counted as one sort, then they are no different from each other.

Still, let us try to set the point out clearly. There is a “beginning,” a “not yet begun” beginning, and a “not even ‘not yet begun’ yet” beginning. There is “being,” there is “non-being,” there is “not yet non-being,” and there is “not even ‘not yet non-being’ yet.” Suddenly “being” and “non-being” are split apart—yet one still does not know which of the two is truly being and which is truly non-being. I have already said all this, and still do not know whether my words count as having been said, or as never having been said at all.

Nothing under heaven is larger than the tip of an autumn hare’s hair, yet Mount Tai looks small; nothing outlives a child who dies in infancy, yet Peng Zu, who lived eight hundred years, counts as short-lived. (That is the angle of relativity and equalizing things.) Heaven and earth arose with me, and the ten thousand things and I are one piece. Once it is one, can it still be spoken of? Once “one” has been said, can one stay silent? Say “one,” and with “saying” you already have two; two and one make three. Carry on like that and even a sharp reckoner cannot finish—how much less an ordinary person! From non-being you can already reach three in this way; how much more when you go from being to being again. There is no need to push the series further; resting in this “is”—what is actually so—is enough.

(Front matter on textual variants: one manuscript has “I” for “this”; forms such as “zhang” and “ming” follow the Shiwen, the Song edition, and the Shide Tang block print.)

Section One — Annotation

If we now say that “there is no right and wrong,” how can we tell whether that aligns with people who “have words to say” or sets us apart from them? If we insist we belong to the same camp, then when one side treats “nothingness” as right and the other treats “nothingness” as wrong, we are no longer the same. Yet even though our judgments of right and wrong differ, we still remain inside “having right and wrong,” and so we end up in the same category as those we oppose. Hence the saying that “same and not-same also make each other into a kind”—there is no real gap between the sides. Given that, the way to break completely out of the snare of “kind” is to be without deliberate mind: release both right and wrong and also release the thought of “releasing right and wrong.” Keep releasing layer by layer until even “releasing” is not held onto; then there is neither releasing nor not-releasing, and right and wrong quiet down on their own.

Section One — Commentary

“Kind” (lei) means things resemble one another enough to be grouped together. Beings in their confusion cling to “is” and “is not.” This chapter first overturns ordinary sentiment and cuts through that fixation, so for the moment it speaks of “no is and no is-not” as an expedient for entering the Dao. That is why it also says “mutually become a kind”—to remove “no is and no is-not” along with everything else; only by negating again and again does one reach Chongxuan (double mystery: repeated negation, not resting on any fixed side).

Section Two — Annotation

The utmost principle cannot originally be put into words; the moment one speaks, one falls into the discrimination of “kind,” so language can only be borrowed temporarily to point.

Section Two — Commentary

“Chang” here means “to try.” Although the utmost principle is wordless in itself, it is hard to clarify without words, so one tries speaking—like using a shadow to stand in for the meaning.

Section Three — Annotation

Where there is a beginning, there is an ending.

Section Three — Commentary

This is a rhetorical question: it shows that the ultimate Dao has neither beginning nor end, and here attachment to “beginning” and “end” is being cleared away.

Section Four — Annotation

It means: no beginning or end, and treating birth and death as on a level (in principle).

Section Four — Commentary

“Wei shi” means “never yet.” Again a hypothetical question: has there “never been a beginning, never been an ending”? This clears attachment to the very idea of “no beginning and end.”

[5] [Note] Clinging to “unity” or “holding to the One” is still inferior to not deliberately seeking “the One,” letting the ten thousand things naturally each take their place and align on their own; at that stage, even the idea of “the One” can be set aside.

[5] [Commentary] Here again a rhetorical question is posed: is there a state like “one that never had a beginning”? The point is that oppositions such as “without beginning or end” must also be cleared away—there is no need to stay caught on beginning and end.

[6] [Note] Once one fixes on “being” (existence, what is real), beauty and ugliness, right and wrong, will all arise together.

[6] [Commentary] The myriad phenomena of the world are many; in cultivation they are often treated as “like illusion.” So “being” is named first to show that through “being” one sees that its essence is empty. This line breaks attachment to “being.”

[7] [Note] Even after “being” and “non-being” have been discussed, if one has not yet realized “non-non-being” (emptying even “non-being”), the mind may still not release right and wrong, like and dislike.

[7] [Commentary] The question is posed: is there “this non-being, that non-being”? What is meant is not only “being is not [fixed] being,” but also “non-being is not [fixed] non-being.” This line breaks attachment to “non-being.”

[8] [Note] Even knowing “non-non-being,” one may still stop at clinging to “knowing,” and fail to “forget knowing as well.”

[8] [Commentary] The question: is there “never having had ‘non-non-being’”? This line breaks “not” (negation and its opposite pole toward “non-being”).

[9] [Commentary] Further questions such as “never, never having being and non-being” aim to break “not-not-non-being.” From shallow to deep, from coarse to fine: from “being-being” through to “not-non-being.” From this one sees: leave the hundred errors and go beyond the “four propositions” (being, non-being, both being and non-being, neither being nor non-being)—then the meaning is clear. The earlier talk of beginning and end stresses “time”; here, being and non-being stress “principle”; in meaning, both time and principle can be traced to emptiness and stillness.

[10] [Note] Only when every kind of “knowing” is fully forgotten does one suddenly truly reach “utter nothing” (no attainment, no discrimination). Once at “utter nothing,” heaven and earth, the ten thousand things, self and other, and right and wrong in their pairs—all open up clearly and are no longer stuck together.

Commentary

The earlier passage moves from the traces of “being” and “non-being” into the root that is “neither being nor non-being”; what follows moves from that root of “neither being nor non-being” back out to the functioning of “being” and “non-being.” The word e’er (“in a moment,” “suddenly”) means that root and function arise together in the same instant—they are not far apart. The Dao is dark and hard to fathom; its true purport is subtle. Thus: viewed from a moment of function, it seems not to be “being” and “non-being,” yet “being” and “non-being” appear; viewed from function returning to root, “being” and “non-being” are again not fixed “being” and “non-being.” Hence “being” and “non-being” cannot be nailed down, and root and function have no fixed pattern—who can insist it must be “non-being”? Who can insist it must be “being”? Here again, starting from the functioning of “being” and “non-being,” the text shows that the root is in fact “neither being nor non-being.”

Textual note on E’er: Xu Miao read the character with the pronunciation e. On Quesi: ku jiao fan [reverse tone notation]. Si is also written si (water radical), read ci; Li Yi read si li fan. Lu Wenchao notes: si is glossed as “exhausted,” same sense as si/ci.

Annotation [11]

Having said “there is no right and wrong,” one immediately turns again into discourse that “is.”

Textual note on Ji fu: fu you fan.

Annotation [12]

Going further, even talk of “being” and “non-being” can no longer be pinned down; then the chest is utterly empty, without the slightest trace of clinging.

Commentary

Wei means “to say.” Here Zhuangzi is again in “no words.” In principle the teaching must be conveyed through verbal instruction—as in the earlier “please try to put it in words”—but once instruction is used to express the principle, one no longer knows whether those words count as “having words” or “having no words.” The point is that one who expounds the Way can neither stay silent nor speak, and the teaching itself cannot be labeled “not being” or “not non-being.” Lest students fixate on the letter, this passage was added to break that fixation.

Textual note on Xian jie: gu mai fan, also read jie. Lu Wenchao notes: in current texts jie is written as mustard (mustard seed).

This commentary explains Zhuangzi’s relativist outlook in Equalizing Things (Qiwu) regarding size and lifespan.

Form and allotted nature

Compared by outward form, a great mountain is obviously larger than an autumn hair (the fine down shed in autumn, a image for the tiniest thing). Yet if each thing keeps to its xingfen (the boundary and proper station given by its nature), and each reaches its own fullness and is sufficient in its nature, then a large form is not “too much” and a small form is not “not enough.”

Autumn hair and the great mountain

If “each is sufficient in its nature,” autumn hair need not be small merely because it is small, nor need a great mountain be large merely because it is large. If “sufficiency of nature” counts as “large,” nothing under heaven exceeds autumn hair in fullness; if “sufficiency of nature” does not count as “large,” a great mountain can also be called “small.” Hence the saying: nothing under heaven is greater than the tip of an autumn hair, while a great mountain is small—since a great mountain can be small, there is no “large” under heaven; since autumn hair can be large, there is no “small” under heaven. With neither small nor large, neither short nor long life, the huigu (summer cicada, short-lived) does not envy the dachun (legendary long-lived sacred tree) but finds joy in its own lot; the chiyue (small bird that cannot fly high) does not prize the tianchi (vast high lake in the sky) but is content with what suffices it.

Sufficiency in the natural

If one is sufficient in what is tianran (what nature gives) and at peace with xingming (life and fate from heaven), then though heaven and earth endure forever, that is not “long life” shared with me; though the myriad things are many, that is not “otherness” apart from what I equally receive. What heaven and earth bring forth—why not arise together? What the myriad things obtain—why not be one?

Overall meaning: Large and small, long and short life, are all relative; when each is sufficient in its nature, things are equalized—there is no need to look outward and crave what is “greater.”

Commentary: In autumn, the fine hair on animals grows with tips so tiny that the phrase “qiuhao zhi mo” (the tip of an autumn hair) names the smallest imaginable thing. A child who dies still in swaddling clothes is called a shangzi (a child who dies young). “Tai” means great. Things are born with different forms and qi—some small, some large; some die early, some live long. Yet measured by each one’s allotment of nature (xingfen), none fails to be self-sufficient (zizu). So if “great” means enough for one’s nature, nothing under heaven is greater than the tip of an autumn hair; if “small” means having no surplus, nothing under heaven is smaller than a great mountain—call the mountain “small” and nothing is large; call the hair-tip “great” and nothing is small. The same logic applies to early death and long life. Thus heaven and earth, vast as the two modalities (liangyi), are equal once each fully satisfies its nature; though the ten thousand things are many, the meaning of self-attainment (zide) is one. The earlier passage showed neither end nor beginning, neither being nor non-being; here it shows neither small nor large, neither early death nor long life.

Textual note: “Qiu hao” should read “hao” (fine hair). Sima Biao said: rabbit hair grows fine in autumn. Wang Yi’s commentary on the Chuci says: pointed, fine hair. Note: hair softens and thins in autumn, hence the metaphor for the small.

Commentary note 14: The ten thousand things and their myriad forms share self-attainment; in attaining the One they are the same. Since it is already the One, there is no need to say more in principle.

Commentary note 15: Names arise from not seeing clearly. Things sometimes cannot clarify their “one” for themselves and chase this for that, so “one” is used to set the name right. Once it is called one, there is already speech.

Commentary: The dark Dao is silent and still; its principle lies beyond form, name, and color. To lead the lost, appellations arise—so though “one” is the dark unity, it still belongs to the teaching of names. If we call it one, how can we say there is no speech?

[16] [Commentary]

When you use words to speak of “the One,” as soon as form and sound appear, they lead people onto a wrong path, and all sorts of name-forms follow. So although “the One” is the subtle overarching thread, within the teaching of names it is still only a name. Since it is already called “the One,” can you say it has no dimension of speech?

[16] [Commentary]

When you use words to speak of “the One,” yet “the One” itself is not speech—in that case “the One” and “words” become two different things. Once there is already one “One,” speech sets up a second; with one “One” and one “word,” can that not be counted as “three”? To speak of “the One” in a single utterance already turns into three; how much more so if you follow the various branch streams downward—each thing has its own name, and even someone skilled at counting could not enumerate them all. Thus “the One” and those name-forms were never different to begin with; when you release fixation on “the One” and do without words, “the One” naturally remains “the One.”

[Exegesis]

The principle of the subtle “One” is not something speech can exhaust; hence we know: when you use words to speak of “the One,” “the One” is not the words. Moreover, once there is one “One,” speech establishes another name— with “One” and “word,” two name-forms arise. Taking the later name “two” and setting it against the prior subtle “One”: with “One” and “two,” can you avoid calling it “three”? From “three” onward, even someone adept at calendar calculation could not record the full count—how much less an ordinary person?

[Textual Note]

In Shucheng, “cheng” (to name/call) is read per the fanqie chi-zheng; in Shanshu, “shu” (to count) is read per the fanqie se-zhu. (Ancient commentators indicated pronunciation by fanqie; details omitted here.)

[17] [Commentary] (repeated passage)

“The One” originally has no words; once you open your mouth to speak, you arrive at “three.” How much more if you chase the numbers at the far end—you cannot exhaust the count; for ordinary people, needless to say.

[17] [Commentary]

“The One” originally has no words; with words you reach “three.” If you follow the terminal numbers downward, how could you ever reach the end?

[Exegesis]

“Zi” means “from”; “shi” means “toward.” Ultimate principle is wordless; the moment you speak, name-forms arise. So from “no words” toward “having words,” one opening of the mouth already reaches “three”; from “having words” toward “having words” again, branch streams divide—how could that be exhausted? This explains: the myriad dharmas originally had no names; from “non-being” “being” was born, and only then did things develop to today’s state where name-forms are everywhere.

[18] [Commentary]

Each thing resting at the boundary it can reach—that is the best and most fitting course of action.

This commentary explains the principle of emptiness and illusion and the relationship between being and non-being.

All phenomena (all dharmas) are empty and illusory; names, forms, and concepts are no exception—it is not only “verbal designations” that are empty.

From this we see: “non-being” does not mean there is literally nothing, and “being” does not mean there is some solid, real entity. Whether we speak of being or non-being, or of distinctions such as name and number, in themselves they are quiescent, without any fixed, substantial reality.

Since we do not fabricate “being” out of “non-being,” how could we fabricate “being” out of “being”? So between being and non-being, between coming and going, there is no need to deliberately set up any intentional stance—it is enough to follow each thing in accord with its own nature.

On textual collation (for reference): Different editions vary slightly in wording—for example, some manuscripts read one character where another has a near synonym, and certain phrases are restored according to a particular recension. Such variants are common in the transmission of classical texts and do not change how the passage above is read philosophically.

Plain Explanation

The Dao has never had fixed boundaries, and discourse (yan, speech and naming) has never had unchanging standards; only when people insist on sorting right from wrong do they draw lines. What are those lines? Left and right, order and principle, boundaries and disputation, rivalry and quarrel—this is what is called the eight conventional distinctions (ba de).

What lies outside the six directions (liuhe—above, below, and the four quarters, the span of heaven and earth) the sage holds in mind but does not bring up for discussion; what lies within the six directions the sage may discuss but does not use to compete for victory. As for the intentions of successive sage-kings recorded in the Spring and Autumn Annals, the sage may judge by them but does not argue them with others.

Hence it is said: where there is “division,” there is also “non-division”; where there is “argument,” there is also “non-argument.” Why? The sage keeps all of this within, while ordinary people rely on debate to show themselves to one another. So it is also said: within argument there is what argument cannot reach.

The Great Dao cannot be fixed in words; great discernment needs no tongue; great benevolence does not deliberately “act benevolent”; great integrity does not perform humility; great courage does not thrive on contentious strife. Yet once the Dao is displayed and proclaimed, it is no longer the Dao; once disputation is pushed to the limit, one misses the real meaning; when benevolence is always on the lips, benevolence fails; when integrity is polished too brightly, trust is lost; when courage depends on fighting, courage cannot stand. Whenever these five are shown outward, they are almost always one-sided and have fallen into partiality (fang).

Therefore whoever knows how to stop at what one does not know has reached the utmost. Who can grasp “argument without words” and “the Dao without speaking”? To awaken to this is called the Treasury of Heaven (tianfu)—a natural storehouse, an image of the Dao held within. Pour into it and it never fills; scoop from it and it never empties, yet one cannot say where it comes from. This is called preserving inner light (baoguang)—keeping the light within and not displaying it outward.

Note on Chapter Placement

Cui’s commentary holds that chapter 7 of Discourse on Equalizing Things should follow immediately after the previous chapter; Ban Gu assigns the related material to the outer chapters.

[1]

Commentary: The Dao is dark, hidden, and far-reaching, yet it is nowhere absent.

Sub-commentary: The Dao has no fixed abode, yet it is present everywhere; vast and boundless, it admits no talk of “borders” or “limits.”

[2]

Commentary: Each side clings to one extreme in speech, so “this” and “that” have no absolutely fixed standard.

Sub-commentary: Principle is empty and passes through without limit; verbal teaching changes with the audience, so there was never a single unchanging verdict from the start.

[3]

Commentary: The Dao has no enclosure, so the ten thousand things each rest in their place and keep to their own bounds.

Sub-commentary: “Boundary” (zheng) means limit and dividing line. Principle itself has no cliff or shore; teaching follows things as they are; right and wrong and their rationales differ, so dividing lines are not all the same.

(Textual note: “wei shi” is read as in “yu wei fan”; for “you zheng,” Xu Shen reads “zhi ren fan”; Guo and Li read “zhen,” referring to enclosed territory, field boundaries, and the like.)

[4]

Sub-commentary: The question posed here with “boundary” is meant to lead into the doctrine explained below.

[5]

Commentary: Each follows what is convenient; none are identical.

Sub-commentary: Left belongs to yang, right to yin. Though principle stays gathered and still, teaching must respond to things as they arise. Dividing lines differ; ascent and descent are not the same—hence east and west, left and right, spring and autumn, life and killing.

(Textual note: In Cui’s text “you zuo you you” appears as “you” (homophone with zai you, letting each thing stay in its place); “yi bian” read “bi mian fan”.)

[6]

Commentary: Every thing has its principle; every affair has what suits it.

Sub-commentary: “Order” (lun) means pattern and principle; “fitness” (yi) means what is appropriate. Amid the ten thousand things in their tangle, there is inherent order; amid the ten thousand affairs in their unevenness, each follows what fits.

This passage comes from the Zhuangzi jishi (Collected Explanations on the Zhuangzi). It explains commentarial material on “having division and having disputation,” “having rivalry and having contention,” and the “eight kinds of efficacy”—not Zhuangzi’s own words. What follows is a plain-language walkthrough, section by section.

On “having order and having righteousness” and “having discourse and having deliberation”

Lu Deming’s Shiwen (Glosses on the Text) notes that in the ancient text used by Cui Cui, the line reads “having discourse and having deliberation” (you lun you yi), and that reading should be followed. The commentary goes on: outside the four directions of Heaven and Earth, the sage preserves the teaching but does not debate it; within the four directions, the sage may debate but does not casually fix right and wrong. It also says that within “division” there is also “non-division,” and within “disputation” there is also “non-disputation.” The “division” and “disputation” spoken of there are the “having division” and “having disputation” here; likewise, the “discourse” and “deliberation” there are the “having discourse” and “having deliberation” here.

Seventh entry (commentary)

Commentary: To divide according to groups of the same kind; to distinguish according to categories.

Sub-commentary (shu): “Disputation” (bian) means to separate and distinguish. Though birds and beasts are many, each forms flocks and species; the natures of the myriad things differ in countless ways, each falling into a different kind.

Eighth entry (commentary)

Commentary: Chasing together is called jing (“rivalry”); facing each other to argue is called zheng (“contention”).

Sub-commentary: The natures of the myriad things are dim and obscure; each clings to “self” and “other,” and so they chase victory from one another and debate face to face over right and wrong.

Ninth entry (commentary)

Commentary: If one judges in broad outline, there are these eight kinds of de (efficacy or function).

Sub-commentary: Here de means efficacy or operative power. The efficacies of living beings are endlessly varied; stated roughly, there are these eight. This explains the meaning of the earlier phrase about “having boundaries” (you zhen).

Tenth entry (commentary)

Commentary: “Outside the six directions” refers to what lies beyond the natures of things and beyond names and appearances. As for things… (the original text breaks off here.)

Sub-commentary: This shu passage duplicates the ninth entry’s shu—likely a copyist’s repetition. The content is again: de is the name for efficacy; the efficacies of the multitude of beings transform without end; eight are listed in brief to explain the meaning of the earlier “there were boundaries.”

Brief synthesis

This commentarial stretch shows how the human or phenomenal world is full of division, disputation, rivalry, and contention. The annotators pair “having discourse and having deliberation” with the later idea that the sage “preserves without debating” outside and “debates without deliberating” inside, to show that discourse and deliberation too have their levels. Cheng Xuanying’s shu stresses that the myriad things naturally fall into groups and kinds, which then gives rise to chasing and arguing; Zhuangzi gathers these under several kinds of de (efficacy) to explain why the world is everywhere marked by boundaries and opposition.

On “outside the six directions” (liuhe zhi wai)

What is meant by “outside the six directions” is whatever lies beyond the reach of the inherent nature (xing) of the ten thousand things. That layer beyond nature may still “have” principle (li), but it is not within the proper scope of nature itself, so it does not draw the sage into debate. The sage “preserves it without discussing it” because to discuss it would be to force the ten thousand things to learn what they cannot learn by nature. Hence he does not argue about the outer realm; the “eight boundaries” (ba zhi) and each thing resting in its own allotment (an fen zi de) go together.

In commentary: “Six directions” (liuhe) means Heaven and Earth plus the four quarters east, south, west, and north. “Outside the six directions” is where the profound Dao (the Way) of the double mystery (chong xuan) lies, beyond the portion allotted to living beings’ inherent nature. The mysterious Dao is like a net without images, beyond the edge of the four logical formulae; subtle principle is remote and rarefied, outside the six directions. Since it is not something the divine mouth can clearly argue out, the sage only preserves it and does not discuss it.

On arranging according to each nature

To spread things out according to each inherent nature and let people rest in their proper roles.

(The commentary here in the received text closely parallels the preceding passage on inside and outside the six directions, the ineffable subtle principle, and the sage’s preserving without discussing; inwardly, one follows nature and finds peace.)

“Within the six directions” means the inherent portion that living beings receive. All preferences and rejections arise from deluded feeling (wang qing); traced to the root they are equally empty (xu). The sage responds according to circumstance (ji), teaching as the situation calls for. Since this is “speaking from emptiness” (ping xu)—responding without fixed ground—there is nothing by which to nail down right and wrong; hence the text says “I too speak delusively.”

On following the track once formed

To follow the track that has already taken shape, to settle at the utmost of what is fitting, and not to cling to one’s own right and wrong in order to reject the multitude.

“Spring and Autumn” is the age; “jing” is the classic edict; “former kings” (xian wang) means the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors; “zhi” is the record. Taking the Yellow Emperor (Xuan Yuan) as ancestor and Yao and Shun as model, they recorded the age as canon and fixed the track for living beings, handing it down in the human world. The sage’s discussions aim at benefit for the time; in the end he does not cling to being right, argue wrong, or freeze on old traces.

On each thing dividing itself

Each thing divides itself; each affair distinguishes itself. If you want to distinguish by your own measure, you will not see that the other side distinguishes itself on its own.

(The note is sufficient; if the commentary continues with “if one tries to divide from oneself, one does not see that the other divides itself,” it stresses that each thing has its own boundary—the sage does not forcibly cut the world with his own intent.)

Commentary: The Way itself admits no distinction, yet things are carved into right and wrong by human judgment. Thus, in a realm without bounds or divisions, views arise that insist on dividing and debating—such people are scholars of one corner, narrow and obstinate; how could they dissect what is subtle or tell things apart clearly?

[1.4] Commentary: Through hypothetical questions and opposing challenges, the meaning is unfolded and made plain.

[1.5] Annotation: One merely takes “not to dispute” as a mental stance; the sage in truth has no such stance even as that.

Commentary: The sage who penetrates the Way rests quietly in union with the Dao, and so embraces self and things, right and wrong together—like withered wood and dead ashes, originally without separation.

[1.6] Annotation: Because one does not see the other disputing on their own, one can only bring out what one knows and display it to others.

Commentary: “The many people” is another name for sentient beings. Ordinary people, deluded and attached, do not yet understand what is empty and illusory, and so bring out what they know and show it to others; not only do they fail to see the other making distinctions on their own—they also cannot reflect their own wondrous Way. Hence it is said “there is not seeing.”

[1.7] Annotation: Leave naming to things themselves, and there is nothing that can be called by a name.

Commentary: The great Dao is vast and empty; its subtlety transcends form and name. Since it is not color or sound, it cannot be designated. Speaking of those who embody the Way, extinguishing name and reputation is likewise so.

Exegesis: “Bu cheng” (not to name/call) is read as in the annotation (chi zheng fan).

[1.8] Annotation: One has already made distinctions oneself.

Commentary: Awakening to the true teaching, there was originally nothing to say; thus though one disputes and adorns the ten thousand things in speech, what is said equals saying nothing at all.

[1.9] Annotation: Existing naturally without clinging love.

Commentary: (Continuing from above: the true teaching cannot be named; those who embody the Way abide by themselves without clinging love.)

Commentary: To nourish the myriad things and transform all kinds, like spring spreading its gift broadly without the thought “I am doing good”—that is not Ren (benevolence) in the Confucian sense of a role deliberately performed.

Annotation: One who is truly self-sufficient does not tie the coming and going of outer things to “I,” so there is no deliberate yielding and no greedy grasping after fullness.

Commentary: One who awakens to profound principle can see through emptiness and existence and knows that every circumstance is like an illusion, with nothing to cling to; when thing and self are empty from the start, why fuss over advancing, retreating, yielding, and ritual propriety?

Gloss: On the word read as “xian” in “bu xian”: phonetic readings follow Guo and Xu (details omitted).

Annotation: Wherever one goes, things accord; hence there is no “dangerous ground” one cannot tread.

Commentary: “Zhi” means to resist or go against. Inwardly holding compassion and outwardly aiding living kinds, one can follow the world without inner strain, giving help and rescue, emptying the self to meet situations, and never opposing the way things arise.

Gloss: “Bu zhi”: phonetic variants in Xu, Li, and Li Yun (details omitted); glosses include “harm” and “strong.”

Annotation: To use what belongs on this side to illuminate that side is to miss the mark on both sides.

Commentary: Flaunting one’s merit before others and showing off in worldly affairs is ornament and pretense, not the true Dao (the Way).

Annotation: In that way one fails to hit what is fitting for one’s own station.

Commentary: Unable to abide in dark silence and stuck on names and forms, with flashy wording and empty disputation, one never reaches the deep meaning.

Annotation: Things have no fixed object of special love; clinging to “constant love” cannot reach everywhere.

Commentary: Unable to drop loving attachment and let go of clever contrivance, unable to merge self and other in mystery, yet always scheming to bestow favor and bind affection, wanting quick results—often the moment is wrong.

Annotation: Outward brightness and seeming purity are mostly hunger for reputation, not true integrity.

Commentary: Making novelty and going against the crowd into “integrity,” with an eye to fame, is not real integrity.

Annotation: Taking contrarian resistance as courage—when the world loathes it, there is scarcely room to stand.

Annotation (22): Using this to clarify that—both are lost.

Abandoning kindness and acting rashly, going against human feeling—everyone will reject such a person, and nothing worthwhile can be achieved.

The “five things” in question are enough to serve as a basis for how one stands in the world—or they refer to the five attitudes discussed in that passage. All five use youwei (deliberate, forced action) to damage what should simply be as it is: one cannot rest in original nature yet keeps reaching outward without limit. What cannot be grasped by force is grasped anyway—like using what is round to learn what is square, or like fish envying birds. However much one tries to copy luan and feng (the auspicious birds) or the sun and moon, the harder one presses in that direction, the farther one is from what is real; the more one “learns,” the more one loses of innate nature. Only by aligning with the ten thousand things in equality can the baggage of partiality and what one idolizes be shed.

In this context, yuan means “round” and ji means “near.” The “five things” are the faults spoken of earlier—such as making the Dao conspicuous. One who studies the Dao ought to conceal brilliance, yet if one vaunts ability and displays it before others, one is far from the Dao. It is like admiring the square and trying to become round, or loving flight and training to swim: even when imitating luan and feng, one lacks the power to rise high; even when imitating sun and moon, one cannot perform the sun-and-moon kind of “jifang” efficacy (the varied, directional reach attributed to them).

The pronunciation notes in the commentary treat wan/tuan as read yuan (“round”); xiangfang may appear as xiang alone, with the same pronunciation; the jin in jin bi (“approach that”) is read like jin in “fujin” (“nearby”); the shi in yuan shi is read in the yu wan fan notation. These are archaic phonetic glosses and may be omitted when reading the main text.

What lies outside knowledge lies outside xingfen—one’s allotted share of nature. To stop within what one knows—that alone counts as having arrived and as enough. Realms differ in scale; wisdom differs in clarity. Where wisdom cannot reach, there is no need to demand omniscience. When one knows how to halt at one’s own boundary, learning has truly reached its term.

When the heart is broad, one entrusts everything to ziran (spontaneous nature)—or to the great Dao—and no longer twists things by force. “Du ren zhi” means to entrust wholly to the natural course and not to interfere rashly.

【Commentary (Shu)】 “Shu” means “who”; “tian” refers to nature. Who can grasp “speech that uses no words, the Way that cannot be put into words”? Someone who, through such layered analysis, uses this to penetrate all things can be said to accord with nature’s “tianfu” (Heaven’s storehouse—the place where things are gathered and kept).

【Gloss 30】 The heart-mind of the person of ultimate attainment is like a mirror: when something comes, it responds; it responds but does not retain the image in the mind, so it is open and unobstructed, without ups and downs such as “full” or “lacking.”

【Gloss 31】 When the utmost principle shows itself, it is so of itself by nature, leaving no trace of human artifice.

【Commentary (Shu)】 The sea is vast and deep, its limits hard to fathom: though the hundred rivers flow in, it does not seem full; though it drains through the weilu (in tradition, the opening through which the sea discharges), it does not seem exhausted. The sage who embodies the Way is the same: though myriad affairs arise, the spirit is not thrown into disorder; though a thousand difficulties press in, intention does not turn against itself—so he can embrace the ten thousand things, like a treasury holding the myriad numinous presences. Again, it is like a mirror hung in a high hall: when things come, it reflects them; that bit of numinous clarity that can reflect does not know where it comes from—one may call it “having reflected, then forgotten; having forgotten, yet still able to reflect.”

【Gloss 32】 By letting the natural become clear as itself, its light is not damaged or hidden.

【Commentary (Shu)】 “Bao” means to conceal and store within. Only when one reaches “forgetting yet able to reflect, reflecting yet able to forget” can one “bao” (treasure/conceal) the light—and the light becomes all the brighter. This wraps up the meaning of “tianfu” above.

【Cui’s explanation cited in the Shiwen】 “Baoguang” (treasuring/concealing the light): what seems there and yet not there—this is called baoguang.

Yao once asked Shun, “I want to punish the three small states of Zong, Kuai, and Xu’ao, yet when I sit on the throne facing south my heart never settles—why is that?”

Shun answered, “Those three states are still like settlements lost in weeds and scrub. If your heart ought to be open and at ease by nature, why trouble yourself over them? Tradition tells of a time when ten suns shone at once and every living thing was lit; how much more is that true of someone whose virtue outshines the sun?”

The gloss means that Yao had not yet fully grasped “ resting in the natural course without forcing,” so he was heavy-hearted when holding court. The author puts this question in the mouth of Yao to the great sage Shun so as to lead into the ideas of equalizing all things and ultimate unity.

“Shiran” describes a relaxed, satisfied state of mind. Zong, Kuai, and Xu’ao were names of small polities in Yao’s day. “Facing south” is the sovereign’s seat at audience. Shun was six generations from Zhuanxu; his father was Gusou and his mother Wodeng. Legend says he was born when his mother sensed a great rainbow, at Yaoxu; his surname was Yao, he lived by the Gui River and was also called of the Gui line; he had double pupils, style name Chonghua, and was renowned for benevolence and filial piety. When Yao heard of his merit, he gave him two daughters in marriage and enfeoffed him at Yu. At thirty he took charge of all offices; at thirty-three he received Yao’s abdication, moved the capital to Puban, ruled forty years, then yielded to Yu; he later died and was buried in the wilds of Cangwu. When tribute from the three states fell short, Yao considered chastising them; the decision was still pending, which is why he was displeased on the throne. To expound the principle that the ten thousand things are ultimately one, this dialogue is ascribed to the two sages Yao and Shun.

[2 · Annotation]

There is no rank of high and low, noble and base, in what each thing finds fitting for itself. Cui’s note says: the ruler of Song is “the first,” Kuai is “the second,” and Xu Ao is “the third.” In Tingchao, the character read as yao is given the fanqie reading zhi-yao fan.

[2 · Annotation (continued)]

Since what all things find fitting is not base, then humble plants such as wormwood and mugwort are precisely the “wonderful place” of each of those three rulers—they could have been content in their small states.

[Textual note]

For the chu in miaochu (“wonderful place”), the fanqie is chang-lü fan (an old phonetic gloss; read as in modern usage).

[3 · Commentary]

“The three men” means the three rulers of small states. Peng and ai are lowly grasses; even the crested tit can roam freely among them. Though their fiefdoms were humble, those three rulers had enough to settle body and nurture life—yet they still felt discontent. What principle can justify that?

[4 · Annotation]

If one says the sun and moon shine doubly bright, rise to heaven, and illumine the liuhe (six directions, all under heaven), it still seems that there are places wormwood and mugwort do not reach.

[5 · Annotation]

Though the sun and moon shine without partiality, there are still places they do not reach; yet De (Virtue/Power) obtains everywhere. Now to want to seize the will of the wormwood and mugwort (the small states) and force them to submit to oneself—is that not narrow-minded toward the Supreme Dao? So when Zhuangzi says one cannot “shiran” (release and be at ease), he means the heart cannot open and align with the Dao. If one lets every thing fully express its nature and each rest in what suits it—whether far or near, deep or hidden, leaving all to spontaneity so each attains its place—then there is nothing improper there and nothing uneasy here; that is true thoroughfare.

“Jin” here means “guo” (to go beyond). The Huainanzi says: In former times, in the days of Yao, ten suns appeared together, scorching the crops and withering the grasses and trees, while the giant boar (Fengxi, a great wild boar) and the long snake both became disasters for the people. Yao then sent Houyi to shoot upward at the suns; he shot down nine of them, and then went down to kill the long snake, removing the harm for the people. When the ten suns rose into the sky and shone over the six directions (above, below, and the four quarters), there were still hidden, secluded places beneath an overturned basin that the light did not reach. But wherever sage virtue reached, no darkness remained unilluminated. Employing these two kinds of wisdom (referring, in continuity with the preceding text, to the wise functioning of the sage’s virtuous illumination), one surpasses the three luminaries—sun, moon, and stars—and yet, if one wants to take up weapons of war and attack other states to make them submit, then from the perspective of the Dao of peaceful accommodation (resting at ease in allowing things to be natural and not imposing on others), how could this be considered broad and penetrating?

My elder kinsman (the commentator’s term for a member of his father’s generation) says: Attacking other states is formed by the accumulation of views of right and wrong. If one cannot let go of this, then the eight virtues—left and right, human relations and righteousness, distinction and disputation, competition and contention, and so on (referring to the various categories of virtue based on discrimination and striving)—do battle within the mind without one’s knowing it. Those three figures (sanzi), situated among fleabane and mugwort, originally had no need for disputation and distinction. All things, when shone upon by the sun, cannot conceal their traces, but here ten suns are accumulated, all of them wanting to illuminate all things; then the spirit of all things must surely be exhausted. The sun’s shining is originally meant to make all things manifest, but if one single-mindedly seeks multiplicity and completeness, it instead makes it hard for all things to endure.