《庄子集释》Vol. 4

(Continuing the discussion of “shining” or “illuminating”)

The sun shines on all things without deliberately choosing whom to illuminate and whom to leave in shadow. If “De” (Virtue/Power) is taken to mean constantly sorting right from wrong and this from that, one is already acting with preconceptions and deliberate intent. Compared with such “intentional illumination,” even the sun’s way of shining cannot fully cover the traces of that effort—and one ends up trapped in calculation instead. If one sets out to “grasp everything first and then illuminate it,” the vital responsiveness of the myriad things is drained and obscured. The sun’s shining is inherently without deliberate mind; when De dwells on dispute over right and wrong, the moment one acts, mind is present—and in that respect the effort of mind has already gone a step beyond sunlight’s way. Where, then, should one place one’s hands and feet, and where should one apply force?

Nie Que questions Wang Ni

Nie Que asked Wang Ni: “Do you know whether there is a shared ‘same rightness’ among the myriad things?”

(Note: Nie Que and Wang Ni are legendary sages of Yao’s age; their dialogue here illustrates the principle of “equalizing” or “making equal.” The question is whether, when each person clings to his own view and judges others, there truly is a “same rightness” that everyone can accept.)

Wang Ni’s reply

Wang Ni said: “How could I know!”

Explanation of the meaning

(Note) What is called “same rightness” is not necessarily truly correct; what is called “different” is not entirely wrong. When each side holds one extreme, neither can convince the other—so that kind of “I know you are wrong and you know I am right” knowledge is of no real use.

(Commentary) When you and I each have our own right and wrong, there is no absolute “master” standard. If I use “knowing” to know your knowing, my knowing still falls within right and wrong—it is still knowing—so from what could I “know”? In other words, within such relative right and wrong, there is no knowledge one can rely on.

Question: “Do you know what you do not know?”

(Note) Since you do not grasp that all things are fundamentally one, can you at least know that you “do not know”? From here one enters the subtle; layer by layer the inquiry goes to the root, and master and student draw out the deep meaning in question and answer.

Answer: “How could I claim to ‘know’ at all!”

(Note) If you “know that you do not know,” that is already a kind of knowing; once there is such knowing, you cannot simply let each thing rest in its own nature and each talent fulfill its own use.

(Commentary) Using “knowing” to grasp “not knowing” still leaves “not knowing” inside “knowing.” Hence the further question “how do you know,” again answered with “not knowing.”

Question: “Then, do external things have no knowing?”

(Commentary) The inquiry presses on: if even you do not know yourself, must things also be said not to know?

Answer: “Again, how could I claim to ‘know’ at all!”

(Note) Only when even the distinction of “knowing” is released is there open vastness—nothing forced, nothing out of place.

(Commentary) Not only “I” do not know; “things” need not be labeled as “knowing” either. When self and things, inner and outer, are released together, there is nowhere left to plant the word “know.”

Even so, let us try to say something:

How can we be sure that what I call “knowing” is not really “not knowing”? And how can we be sure that what I call “not knowing” is not really “knowing”?

(Note) Precisely because certainty is unavailable, one dare not fix a final verdict and can only try to speak.

(Commentary) “Even so” means “despite all this.” Since one cannot cling to “knowing,” there is no ready doctrine to deliver; one can only attempt to speak.

[Two]

(Note) When fish swim in water, that counts as shared “knowing” for creatures of the water—everyone calls it knowing. But from a bird’s perspective, what was just called “knowing” becomes “not knowing.” The dung beetle’s (qiuyuan) skill is rolling dung balls, while those who mock the dung beetle treat costly aromatics such as storax as treasures. Clearly, “knowing” that looks the same on the surface cannot be taken as a fixed, unchanging standard.

(Commentary) Something may be knowing here and not knowing there, or not knowing here and knowing there. Fish and birds, water and land, are examples. Thus knowing is also not knowing, and not knowing is also knowing. Ordinary people—how could they grasp this!

(Textual note) This passage is mainly about old pronunciations: for example, “yong ju” is read differently in various editions (Xu’s version has “ju,” Guo Xiang gives the reading “ju”); “qi” and “qiang” are given via fanqie spellings; and the Er’ya is cited to say qiuyuan is the dung beetle (qiuyuan).

[Three]

(Note) So-called “not knowing” is really only a matter of difference between parties; each side still has its own kind of “knowing.”

(Commentary) “Not knowing” means that the parties cannot communicate or understand each other—it does not mean there is literally no knowing at all.

(Editorial note) Earlier scholars’ collation notes that “yong ju” can be glossed as “what use” or “why so hastily” (the characters ju, qu, and ju can stand in for one another), with supporting parallels such as Sima Biao’s gloss in the Wenxuan “Qiuxing fu” commentary that “yong” means “what use”; and phrases like “why rebuke so hastily?” in the Shiji biography of Gan Mao, and “why should Wei Xi be so abrupt?” in the Han Feizi, among others.

Let me put a question to you: if a person sleeps in a damp place, they get a sore back and half-paralyzed limbs—is damp mud really what humans are “supposed” to endure? If a person stays up in a tree, they tremble with fear—do monkeys feel the same? Among humans, damp ground, and monkeys, who can decide what is the “right place” to be?

People eat refined grain and domestic meat; elk eat tender grass; centipedes find bitter gall delicious; crows and owls treat mice as fine food—among these four, who can decide what is the “right taste”?

Maoqiang and Liji are beauties in human eyes; fish see them and dive to the bottom; birds see them and fly high; elk see them and bolt. Among humans, fish, birds, and elk, who can decide what is the “right beauty” in the world?

As I see it, the beginnings of benevolence and righteousness and the paths of right and wrong are tangled and confused—how could I clearly sort out their distinctions!

The commentary’s point that “one does not know what is correct oneself, and so turns to ask you,” and that “these three examples are meant to show that each thing suits its own convenience and there is no single standard”—both mean: since there is no absolute standard, one should not cling to one’s own view and forcibly rank things as higher or lower.

[Four] [Commentary]

This passage only gives four examples to show that people under Heaven each have their own preferences and do not match one another. If you treat “difference” alone as grounds to reject the other side, and pay no attention to the reasoning that ought to hold in common for all, you cannot truly grasp the shared principle of what must be so.

Notes on word meanings and pronunciation (as gathered in the commentary tradition)

• Chu: Pronunciation is close to chu; the Xiao Erya says this is grass used to feed livestock. Sima Biao notes that when cattle and sheep eat grass, it is called chu.
• Huan: Pronounced huan or hu man; Sima Biao says dogs, pigs, and the like are called huan, again from what they eat.
• Mi: Read with the mi sound; it refers to elk and similar animals.
• Jian: Read jian lian. Sima Biao calls it fine grass; Cui Yan calls it sweet licorice; Guo Pu cites the San Cang: fodder grass for the six domestic animals is also called jian. Hao Qingfan follows the Shuowen: the character jian combines zhi (a mythical one-horned beast) with the grass component, and cites the old tale that a divine being presented zhi to the Yellow Emperor; when the Emperor asked what it ate, it answered that it ate jian. He also cites the Hanshu, biography of Zhao Chongguo—“the enemy lost their fine land and jian cao”—and the Guanzi, “Eight Observations”: “when jian cao is abundant and spreads, the six livestock multiply easily”—all tied to livestock eating grass.

• Ji qie: Ji is read ji; qie is sometimes written qu, read zi xu. Li Yun says it is the name of an insect; the Guangya calls it wugong; the Erya has jili ji qie, with Guo Pu’s note: shaped like a locust, with a large belly and long horns, able to eat snake brains (ji and li in the name are phonetic glosses).

• Dai: Read as the usual character. Cui Yan identifies it as a snake; Sima Biao as a small snake; he also says ji qie likes to eat snake eyes (this can be read together with the various notes above on eating snake brains).

• Chi and ya: Chi is read chi yi; ya was originally written ya, read yu jia. Cui Yan glosses both as wu (crow/raven).
• Qi: Read shi zhi; the character sometimes appears as shi (to relish); in Cui’s text it is written gan (sweet), which overlaps in meaning with shi—liking, craving what is pleasant.
• Mei e: Here e is read with the wu lu cut, the same as e in hao wu (likes and dislikes)—the side of aversion, what one finds unpleasant.

These entries on sound and meaning are meant to gloss the terms in the main text of the Zhuangzi—“chu, huan, mi, jian,” insects and snakes, birds and beasts, and hao wu—so they can be set beside the [Four] [Commentary] theme that “what people under Heaven like differs.”

Apes pair in their own fashion, elk take mates among themselves, and small fish sport in muddy water—each creature in its own natural way.

Mao Qiang was a favored concubine of the King of Yue; Li Ji was a cherished consort of Jin. Everyone said their looks were unmatched in their day, that they were women of supreme beauty. Yet fish that saw them plunged deep in fright, birds that saw them flew up high in alarm, and elk that saw them turned and ran without so much as a glance back. Set these four cases side by side: who can say that “beauty” is one fixed standard for the whole world?

From this we see that when ordinary people are confused, they invent likes and dislikes out of thin air; if you look calmly by reason, who is right or wrong, what is beautiful or ugly—how could that ever be decided?

(Note: “jue” describes something sudden and swift.)

[Commentary] (Guo Xiang)

What benefits one side often harms the other; in the world, “that” and “this” are inexhaustible, so disputes over right and wrong never settle on a fixed standard. The best approach is not to argue: let each side hold to what it takes as right, so everyone can rest easy and each get what suits them.

[Subcommentary] (Cheng Xuanying)

Though things are many, none of them is ever outside “me” (what relates to me). Thus in practicing benevolence and walking in righteousness, gain and loss differ: sometimes what helps me harms others, sometimes what is right for others is wrong for me. If you look from both sides of “that” and “this,” the paths of right and wrong and the threads of benevolence and righteousness tangle like a jumble of mixed dishes—with no fixed measure, how can I clearly judge the distinctions?

[Textual Notes] (Pronunciation and Collation)

“Fanran” is read with the fan pronunciation; “jiaoluan” (mixed confusion) was formerly glossed with the fan hu jiao. In Guo’s text “jiao” appears as “san” (scatter). Qing Fan’s note: it should read “jiao.” The Shuowen defines jiao as mixed and tangled; san as assorted meat—they are not interchangeable in meaning. In clerical script, jiao was sometimes written in a form easily confused with san, hence copyist errors; in other books, passages such as “not mixed with things” in the Taixuan and “day and night mixed” in the Huainanzi now often wrongly read san for jiao. Gao You glosses san as “mixed appearance,” but san nowhere in those books means “mixed,” so such san should all be read as jiao.

“Zhijing” is read with the jing pronunciation; the same below. Modern texts usually write jing as “boundary/realm.”

Note [2]

When spirit and mind are full and complete, and body and form are merged with the ten thousand things, even through the greatest transformations one never loses the “self”; thus the chest is not crossed by the entanglement of being pulled by external things and torn into inner division.

Commentary [2]

“Hù” means frozen solid. When wild fields and marshes are burned by fire, rivers and the Milky Way turn to ice; when thunder splits mountains and fierce winds stir the great sea—yet the Zhiren (the ideal person in Zhuangzi who is united with the Dao and not enslaved by externals) keeps spirit settled and shows no outward sign, body and form assimilated to things; water and fire are no calamity to him, wind and thunder cannot startle him.

Note [3]

Entrusting action to external things (following things as they go) is not the “I” actively and rashly moving on its own.

Commentary [3]

“Ruoran” means “like this.” Empty, still, and plain, without using mind to scheme—like cloud-vapor shading and sheltering the living, proceeding along the natural posture of things.

Note [4]

There is alternation of day and night, yet not the kind of cleavage that sets life and death in hostile opposition.

Commentary [4]

Dusk and dawn alternate; day and night can be distinguished; accepting the time and following fate, life and death have no essential difference. One can also drive the ten thousand things and bear what holds spirit—hence metaphors such as “riding” and “mounting.”

Note [5]

Only by not insisting with private cleverness and rash judgment, and letting heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things each operate on their own—(the line in the source appears unfinished; the emphasis in the surviving text is on “no clinging to knowing, entrusting to nature.”)

【Five】【Commentary】

Only by not using one’s own cleverness to intervene, and instead fully letting all things under heaven run their course, can one thereby advance and embrace everything without being exhausted or drained.

【Subcommentary】

Movement and stillness merge and complete each other; hidden resonance happens in the same instant—the person sits still between heaven and earth, while the heart roams beyond the four seas.

【Six】【Commentary】

Taking “transformation” as what is fundamental and what one rests upon, life and death are one and the same in his eyes.

【Seven】【Commentary】

If even life and death need not be clung to, how much less profit and loss—they are even less worth holding in the mind.

【Subcommentary】

So-called profit and loss are no more than slight gains and losses in the course of life. Since one treats life and death as the alternation of day and night, and rides transformation in free wandering, even before life and death one is indifferent to profit and loss—how then could one still fix the heart on profit and loss!

Qu Quezi asked Chang Wuzi, saying: “I heard from you, Master, that the sage does not deliberately set out to do things, does not deliberately seek benefit, does not deliberately avoid harm, is not ardently pursuing, and does not specially attach to any particular “Way”; sometimes seeming speechless when there is speech, sometimes seeming to speak when there is no speech—yet can wander outside the filth of the mundane world. You, Master, took that for reckless, idle talk, but I take it as the embodiment of wondrous Dao. What do you think?”

【One】【Commentary】

Affairs come of themselves; principle responds of itself—it is not that the sage actively chases and handles those affairs.

On Personal Names and Who “Qiu” Is

Textual notes (pronunciation and older views):

“Quque” is read per the ancient fanqie notation “qi-ju fan.” “Changwuzi” is said by Li Yi to be so named because he lived under a long paulownia tree; Cui Yan says his personal name was Qiu; in the time of Emperor Jianwen of Jin some said Changwu was a man from a fief. Xiang Xiu glosses “fuzi” as Ququezi’s teacher.

Yu Yue’s philological argument:

Yu Yue holds that Ququezi should be a descendant of one of Confucius’s seventy disciples. “Wen zhi fuzi” here means “I heard it from the Master (Confucius).” When Changwuzi says below that “even the Yellow Emperor would be baffled by this—how could Qiu claim to understand it?” Qiu is Confucius’s personal name; because Ququezi is relaying what Confucius said, Confucius is referred to as “Qiu.” Readers who miss this take “Qiu” as Changwuzi’s own name, which is why notes say things like “Changwuzi—Cui says his name is Qiu”—Yu Yue finds that quite wrong.

Further on: “Qiu and you are both dreaming; when I say you are dreaming, that too is a dream”—“yu (I)” is Changwuzi speaking of himself. If the text first says “Qiu and you are both dreaming” and then “I too am dreaming,” “Qiu” cannot be Changwuzi’s name.

[2] Commentary and Subcommentary: Going Straight Ahead, Neither Dodging Nor Currying Favor

Commentary: However things unfold, keep going straight ahead; there is no need to dodge or to flatter on purpose.

Subcommentary: Here wei means to avoid or sidestep. One grasps how prosperity and decline interweave in fate and how benefit and harm shift with the times, so one advances with the Way—neither fleeing disaster nor courting favor.

[3] Commentary and Subcommentary: Not Pleased When Others Seek You Out

Commentary: When others come seeking him, he need not be especially pleased; when he straightforwardly takes what should be taken, he need not grow angry either.

Subcommentary: This turns away from (wei) clinging to gain and loss through subtle insight. So when the outer world seeks him out, he is not delighted because of it.

[4] Commentary

Commentary: (Of a certain state or person) duzhi—reaching a level alone, unmatched by others.

(The excerpt does not expand the subcommentary here; it only retains the judgment “one who has arrived alone.”)

The wisdom possessed by the sage is concentrated and still, illuminating the ten thousand things without private likes or dislikes; neither welcoming nor rejecting, neither speaking of “birth” nor of “extinction.” Hence one would never employ a mind of clinging and grasping to practice the void, unobstructed supreme Dao.

Whatever can be named and distinguished is not what I mean by “name”; each thing merely names itself. Thus on one side there is “having a name,” on the other “having no name.”

Here “wei” means teaching and verbal instruction. One who embodies the supreme Dao is empty, still, and level, descending from the root into manifest function and responding through resonance. Hence one can teach from the perspective of principle—seemingly “without name” yet also “with name”; and display principle within teaching—seemingly “with name” yet returning to “without name.”

Whatever is not true nature is dust and defilement.

“Harmonizing with the light and uniting with the dust” means blending with brightness and dwelling with grime, standing in defiling conditions without being stained. Thus though one remains amid the clamor of the world, the heart roams beyond dust and defilement—meaning that apart from true nature, all is dust and defilement.

Exegetical notes: In some editions, huangdi (“emperor”) is also written as Huangdi (Yellow Emperor). Lu Wenchao says that huang (“emperor”) and Huang (“Yellow”) are interchangeable, and the present text has Huangdi. Ting is read with the fanqie che-ding; ying is read like the ying in yingmo (“polishing”), and some editions write ying and read it with the fanqie yu-jiong. Xiang Xiu and Sima Biao say that tingying means doubt and confusion; Li Gui says it is the appearance of being unclear; Cui Zhuan says it is having a little light but not being greatly bright. The editions of Xiang and Cui also write the lacuna graph plus rong; Lu Wenchao, citing the Zihui bu, says that this lacuna graph appears in Buddhist scriptures, and the Suihan says that the lacuna graph is the same as hui (“radiance”).

Commentary: All things have their natural nature, and principles have an ultimate point. Follow it straight on, and one will silently unite with it of oneself; it cannot be fully expressed in words. Therefore the speaker is menglang (“reckless, impractical”), and the listener is tingying (“confused and unclear”). Even Huangdi could not make the myriad things have nothing they harbor, nor carry tingying through to the end. Thus the sage entrusts the matters that should be dealt with to what lies beyond dust and dirt (beyond the mundane), mysteriously unites beyond seeing and hearing, illumines with natural clarity without calculating in advance, and lets things be so of themselves without seeking to make them manifest. Now Qu Quezi, having just heard menglang words, took them to be the practice of the wondrous Dao; this is no different from seeing an egg and demanding that it crow at dawn, or seeing a pellet and demanding to get xiaozhi (roast owl). To be unable to be at peace with the times and abide in accord with circumstances while seeking change, to worry about death when it is time to live, to fix on this as right and argue that as wrong—all these are the sort who calculate in advance.

Subcommentary: The xiao is the peng bird mentioned in Jia Yi’s rhapsody (as the original text has it); it is the size of a female chicken, shaped like a turtledove, green in color, with very fine meat, and can be made into soup and roast; it comes from south of the Yangtze. An egg has the function of hatching a chicken, but while it is an egg it cannot yet announce dawn; a pellet is only a pellet (one cannot immediately get roast owl).

【Commentary】

The “owl” (xiao) here belongs to the same family as the peng bird—the kind Jia Yi describes in his Rhapsody on the Owl. It is about the size of a hen, somewhat like a turtledove in shape, with greenish plumage and tasty flesh, good for soup or roasting; it is common in the Jiangnan region. Its eggs were once thought able to hatch chickens, yet when it lays, it still cannot herald the dawn; a slingshot can bring down an owl, but the moment it falls there is no time to roast it—just as teaching can explain subtle principles, but while one is speaking the principle is not yet complete. When the zhuque bird has heard only a few words of doctrine, it takes that for full awakening to the subtle Way: this is applying the teaching too soon and listening too hastily.

【Classic text】

For now I will speak to you at random, and you may listen at random. Why clutch sun and moon at your side or tuck heaven and earth in your bosom? People, for the sake of matching words on the tongue and tangling right and wrong together, lift one another up and divide superior from inferior. The multitude bustles about, enslaved by outer things; the sage seems dull and muddled (“yu zhi”), stacking ten thousand years into one stretch before glimpsing a state of “pure oneness.” All things are like this, yet they insist on using this mutual embrace and mutual entanglement.

【Note】

“Wild speech” (wangyan)—what is said is inherently not rigorous enough, so the speaker deliberately tries it out in the form of “speaking at random for now” to you.

【Note (phonetic glosses omitted)

“Shiwen” entries are mostly ancient fanqie spellings and variant readings for pronunciation in recitation; “jiao” marks textual differences between editions—general readers need only know that versions differ.

Commentary

“Yu” means “I”; “xi” means “what” or “why.” Ultimate principle cannot truly be put into words—once you speak, you easily say too little or too much. So I will speak loosely for now, and you may listen loosely—how does that sound? It also says: in sound and meaning, “xi” is “he” (what).

Annotation

Treating life and death as the alternation of day and night is a simile of “leaning on sun and moon”; treating the ten thousand things as one body is a simile of “embracing the whole cosmos.”

Commentary

“Pang” means to lean on or depend on; “xie” means to hold in the bosom or embrace. The four directions above and below are called “yu” (space); past and future are called “zhou” (time). The sage who accords with the Dao can forget things and self, then further embrace the myriad, and merge in silence with the unity of life and death. Thus Guo Xiang’s commentary says: taking life and death as day and night is the simile of leaning on sun and moon; taking the myriad things as one body is the simile of embracing the cosmos.

Textual notes

For “pang ri yue,” Lu Deming gives the reading pang with burial-tone fan; Xu Miao gives fu with burial-tone fan. Sima Biao says it means the same as “yi” (depend). Cui Zhuan’s text writes “bang” (slander) instead. Lu Deming elsewhere has “xie yuzhou zhi yu ye” (the simile of embracing the cosmos).

This annotation explains that ordinary people take distinctions of high and low, noble and base, far too seriously. To break that fixation, the sage adopts an attitude of “making no distinction between self and other” and “following things as they come and accepting the course of events.”

Several key terms in the passage carry roughly the following force. A character missing in the received text describes a state in which nothing is marked off or ranked. Zhi means to leave things as they are and not force them. Hua suggests slipperiness, disorder, and things running together. Hun is dimness and lack of clear light. Li refers to menials and bond servants—the lowly label applied to those at the bottom of the social ladder. Human feeling often turns things upside down and draws the line between noble and base with rigid clarity. For the sage who would dispel that confusion and he (merge) with the Dao, the better path is not to redraw a “correct” hierarchy but to dwell as if in slippery, dim, mixed confusion: meeting each affair and each person as it comes, even honoring one another as fellow li—leveling high and low and treating all alike.

The commentary adds two further layers. One is philological: notes on missing or variant graphs and their pronunciations (readings such as min, and textual comparisons involving bo, bei, and related forms), showing that schools of reading diverge while the doctrinal point still rests on merging and not dividing. Another gloss speaks of chiwu (racing and striving) in the jing (realm) of shi and fei (this is right, that is wrong)—people exhausting themselves in the chase after judgment. Chunran describes moving straight ahead without reflective knowing. The shu (sub-commentary) says that the fanfu (common person) remains yiyi (busy and driven), toiling in pursuit within the foreground of phenomena; one who ti Dao (embodies the Way) wang zhi fei zhao (forgets knowing and sets aside bright scrutiny), like yu chun—seemingly dull and stupid, yet in fact moving with the Way and no longer led by the tug of right and wrong or noble and base.

In sum, the passage uses rank and servitude as a metaphor: the sage, through merging, ren yun (entrusting to the course of things), and an attitude that looks like chaotic indifference, breaks the worldly clinging to high and low. That aligns with the Zhuangzi themes of qi wu ( leveling things ) and an ming ( resting in one’s allotted lot ).

[7]

(Commentary on the text)

“Pure” (chun) means not adulterated and not mixed. Ordinary people take the myriad changes across long ages as chaotic, and so they wear out body and spirit, shuttling back and forth between this side and that. Only the great sage is without fixation; he goes straight ahead in openness and becomes one with change. Once he is one with change, he constantly roams within the “Alone” (du)—the unchanging One. Thus even through hundreds of millions of years and ten thousand differences, all is the Dao acting and completing; each person speaks of their own “so,” yet in substance the ten thousand things are one “so.” There is no thing that is not “so,” no moment that is not “complete”—only then can one call it “pure.”

(Sub-commentary)

The sage’s De (Virtue/Power) merges with the two poles of Heaven and Earth and shares one body with the ten thousand things, so he can follow change and accept transformation and dwell at ease with worldly affairs. Though dynasties shift from ancient to modern, times turn perilous or smooth, worldly dust mixes in, and differences multiply a thousandfold, he remains calm and self-possessed and does not take it to heart. Holding to the One in refined purity, he constantly abides in the subtle extreme.

(A hereditary commentator’s note: Ordinary people toil, comparing today with tomorrow; what they call right today they call wrong tomorrow, what they call wrong today they call doubly wrong tomorrow, and the next day they may call wrong “right-wrong” again. The sage is dull and muddled (yuchun)—unclear in the ordinary sense—yet lodges in the commonplace by “not using” (buyong); he joins myriads of years to exhaust their measure. “One” is wholly without distinction between this and that; “complete” (cheng) is at ease without a “so” that could differ; “pure” is tranquil without debate of right and wrong. The sage thus responds to the changes of the ten thousand things and mutually nurtures them in the inexhaustible—this is “joining myriads of years while completing in purity.”)

(Textual gloss)

Chuxin (startled/fearful heart): fanqie spelling “chi lü.” Canrou (blended/mixed): fanqie spelling “ru jiu.”

[8]

(Commentary on the text)

“No thing is not so” (wu wu bu ran): there is no kind of thing that, in its own being, is not “thus and so”—the same idea as “the ten thousand things are one ‘so’” and “no time is not complete” above. It stresses that in the perspective of the Dao-body and the sage, each thing attains its own “so”; they are not a jumbled heap of mutually severed right and wrong, and therefore one can speak of “pure.”

[9] Guo Xiang’s commentary

“Yun” means to accumulate or pile up. Pile time on and on, and ten thousand years can be seen as one whole; apply principle to the myriad things, and each thing, from its own angle, is “entirely so.” Because of this layer upon layer of clinging, people lose track of where birth and death, before and after, really fall; they also lose track of who wins or loses between “self” and “other,” and whose side counts as the standard.

Cheng Xuanying’s sub-commentary

“Yun” still means accumulation. People often cling to their own views—a habit long ingrained. So, looked at horizontally, hardly anyone fails to say “it holds on my side, not on the other’s”; looked at vertically through past and present, most say “only I am right, others wrong.” Though things are many and past and present stretch far, such piles of dispute seem never to stop. The sage transforms with the rise and fall of the age, yet in action often keeps stillness, and amid hundreds of millions of years and thousands of differences can still hold a pure, unmoving oneness.

Notes (for reading the original text; not part of the scripture proper)

• Textual gloss: Lu Deming’s pronunciation notes—one manuscript reads “xiang yun” (mutual accumulation) as “yun” (to blend/wrap); “yun” is glossed in the sense of accumulation (fanqie readings vary among commentators).
• Textual collation: The following entries are the editor’s emendations and supplements from different editions (e.g. “wei,” “bei,” “mu,” “yun,” and similar), belonging to textual criticism, not doctrinal explanation.

Plain-language reading

On what grounds do I claim that clinging to life is not a delusion? And on what grounds do I claim that fear of death is not like the “weak departure” of childhood—leaving one’s homeland young and later forgetting you were ever meant to go back?

Li Ji was the daughter of a man of Ai in the fief of Di. When the state of Jin first carried her off, she wept until her collar was soaked. Once she had entered the royal palace, shared the king’s bed, and ate fine grain and rich food, she regretted having wept at all. On what grounds do I claim that when people die they will not regret having struggled so hard to stay alive?

How the commentary is usually read: Birth and death are two sides of one reality; the pattern of change is the same, yet people insist on welcoming life and rejecting death—as if they could oppose natural transformation. So they do not see that “delighting in life” may itself be delusion. “Weak departure” means losing your native place while young, living long elsewhere until that place feels like home and you forget you were meant to return. Emerging from nothing into being is birth; passing from being into nothing is death. If you are attached to life and hate death, is that not like weak departure without knowing the way home?

The furnace and the smith refine all things without favoritism; the turn of life and death follows one and the same principle. Only delight in life and hatred of death—are those not delusion?

Notes on pronunciation and meaning (Shiwen)

Readings and glosses that commentators mark for ancient notes—such as e si (“loathing death”), ruo sang (“weak and lost”), shao er (“since youth”), and yan zhi (“how can one know”)—are omitted here.

[3] Commentary

Over a lifetime, feelings shift back and forth in just this way. Fixed in one mood, a person cannot imagine another; all the more so for the great turnings of death and life—how could they be known to each other?

[Shu] (Sub-commentary)

Long ago Duke Mu of Qin and Duke Xian of Jin jointly attacked Li Rong. They took a beautiful woman and a pair of jade rings: Qin wanted the rings, Jin wanted the woman. She was the daughter of a frontier guard in the Ai district of Li Rong. When she had just left Li Rong and parted from her kin, homesickness ran deep and tears wet her collar; once she reached Jin and was favored to the utmost, she shared Duke Xian’s bed and delicacies filled the kitchen—her feelings had already changed, and she regretted her earlier weeping. Even within one life feelings change like this; the gulf between death and life is greater still—how could one side know the other? Zhuangzi speaks in parables, so he calls Duke Xian “the king.”

Shiwen (Readings)

“Until she reached the king’s place”: Cui’s note says that in the Warring States period lords usurped the title wang (king), hence Duke Xian is called king. The graph for “basket/frame” (kuang) also appears as kuang (another form); pronunciation follows Xu, Sima, and others. “Bed” (chuang): Sima takes kuang chuang as “to lay the bed”; Cui takes kuang as “square, proper”; another view takes it as the main bed.

[4] Commentary

Qi means “to seek.”

[Shu] (Sub-commentary)

When Lizhi came to Jin she regretted her earlier weeping; how could she know that the dead might not in turn regret the desperate will to live they had while alive?

At night one dreams of drinking; at dawn one weeps. One dreams of weeping; at dawn one goes hunting. While still inside the dream, one does not know it is a dream; in the dream one even tries to interpret that dream; only after waking does one know it was a dream. There must be a “great awakening” (da jue) before one realizes that human life is originally a “great dream” (da meng). Fools fancy themselves awake and secretly think they understand everything. Whether lord or shepherd, how stubborn! Kong Qiu and you and I are all dreaming; when I say you are dreaming, that saying too is a dream. Talk of this kind is called “diaogui”—strange, paradoxical, and hard to swallow. Ten thousand generations from now, if a great sage appears who can grasp this explanation, meeting him will be like meeting someone at dawn or dusk—sure to happen sooner or later.

Cheng Xuanying’s commentary (summary)

The shift between death and life is like the difference between waking and dreaming. Once waking and dreaming are seen as different, delighting in life while alive and delighting in death when dead—each getting what fits—there is no need to be bound by one fixed standard.

In the world there are also those fierce while awake yet fortunate in dreams; why insist that one must rejoice in life and grieve death? Thus between waking and sleep there is no solid ground for absolute judgment.

Older notes (summary)

This passage says that circumstances change between waking and sleep: when events change, feelings change too. While alive one wishes to enjoy life; when dead one may wish to enjoy death—each gets its wish—so there is no need for mutual constraint.

【II】 Commentary

From this we can see: when a person is about to die, they often do not realize that they are dying; they simply live out what their heart and circumstances naturally bring.

Commentary

While dreaming, one does not know the dream is a dream; likewise, on the day one is to die, one does not know that death is death. Each person rests in their own intent and finds ease in their own situation—what is there to cling to with regret?

【III】 Commentary

(In received editions this note is often run together with those before and after; the gist continues the above: whether in dream or waking, in life or death, all is self-adaptation within “not knowing.”)

【IV】 Commentary

Whatever one meets is enough; why must one worry about death from the very moment of birth?

Commentary

In sleep people take dreams for real and even divinate within the dream to infer fortune or misfortune; only after waking do they see it was all dream. So rejoice in life while living and in death while dying—why live in fear of death?

【V】 Commentary

“Great awakening” (da jue) refers to the sage. The one who has fully awakened understands that anyone still caught in worry and calculation remains in the great dream that has not yet cleared.

Commentary

The multitude toils within the realm of purposeful action (youwei), dazed inside the great dream; only the sage who embodies the Dao (ti Dao) stays awake alone, seeing that those full of anxious care have not yet truly awakened.

【VI】 Commentary

Fools live in the great dream yet think themselves already awake; so they secretly treat what they favor as their lord and what they detest as herding and menial work (mu yu), gladly trusting the biases of one school or one household—truly stubborn and shallow.

Plain-language summary

This Zhuangzi commentary and sub-commentary use “dream and waking” to mirror “life and death”: in a dream one does not know it is a dream; near death one does not know death is death—each disposition finds its own ease, and there is no need to fret over death while alive. Divining within a dream is like waking afterward: what comes to one can be enough in itself. Only the sage in “great awakening” sees that ordinary people’s anxieties mean they have not yet woken; fools imagine they are awake, yet they exalt what they like and despise what they dislike like master and servant, taking partisan views for truth—narrow and obstinate.

Commentary

The usual way of things among the myriad beings is dullness and delusion—like walking at night in total darkness. People are sunk in dreams yet take themselves to be already awake; they whisper and argue, trusting only their own narrow views. What the heart favors they treat as lord and superior; what the heart rejects they treat like a cattle herder or horse groom (mu, one who tends cattle; yu, one who tends horses)—making such partiality their whole sense of human relations, which is narrow and stubborn in the extreme.

Note [7]

Because one has not yet forgotten words and relies on the mind-spirit to grasp meaning, one is still not fully awakened.

Commentary

“Qiu” is the name of the place Changwu. Even a state that mirrors the true origin is still called “like a dream”—how much less can those who are foolish yet self-assured speak of real awakening!

Note [8]

This is like divining inside a dream while still dreaming. People think they are dreaming but have not yet woken; how much more so those who think they are already awakened!

Commentary

A deluded mind-spirit that has not awakened: discourse itself is still like divining in a dream. To think one is dreaming while still not awake applies all the more to those who think they are already awakened.

Commentary

Where feeling is confused and there is no awakening, talk of dreams is still within the dream. To reason in words—even the finest rhetoric remains within words. So to divining in a dream, the dream is ultimately empty; to “test” meaning in words, words are ultimately false. The image of “divining in a dream” is a simile; it also wraps up the earlier kind of rash, unrestrained talk.

Note [9]

This is not ordinary speech, so ordinary people cannot understand it; hence it is called strange and outstanding, while most cannot see the suspended, hidden depth in it.

Commentary

When everyone under heaven is in a dream, that is when talk becomes subtle and profound. It is not common language and does not pander to the world; strange and outstanding, it shakes ordinary feeling and knowing. Unless one is clear and penetrating, who can recognize what is far-reaching within it?

(“Diao” suggests reaching, arriving; “gui” suggests the uncanny and rare.)

Note [10]

Those who can shed binding like sloughing skin and be mysteriously one with life and death are few.

Phonetic gloss

“Shenjie”: a reading near “xie”; Xu Miao gives the fanqie hu-jie.

[One] Commentary

“Ruo” and “er” both mean “you.” The line “Is it not that you have got the better of me?” is only a rhetorical question. Right and wrong, “that” and “this,” are not ultimately real when viewed as a whole; yet people who invert black and white still insist on sorting them out. Suppose you and I debate and you win while I lose—does your winning mean you are necessarily right and my losing mean I am necessarily wrong? Of course that cannot be settled that way.

[Two] Annotation

“Ruo” and “er” both mean “you.”

[Commentary]

Turn it around: suppose I win and you lose—does my winning mean I am necessarily right and you are necessarily wrong? Each side clings to one edge; neither can serve as a reliable basis.

[Three] Commentary

“Huo” indicates uncertainty. You and I may both be right or both be wrong; each has a story of its own, and no one can fix who wins or loses—so what is called “right” may not be right, and what is called “wrong” may not be wrong.

[Four] Commentary

If both sides call something “right,” there is no “wrong”; if both call it “wrong,” there is no “right.” Thus right and wrong, “that” and “this,” all arise from deluded feeling.

[Five] Annotation

Not knowing yet forcing inference, not seeing yet forcing argument—debating back and forth still cannot make one truly sure, because one always treats the other as an external opponent to fight. Debating as opponents until the whole day is dim: in the end no one can fix the standard, so each must be left to set himself straight.

[Commentary]

You and I, each holding a partial view, both think ourselves right, so we do not truly understand each other. To understand each other truly, what you take as wrong may be what the other takes as right. Even if a third person were sent to judge right and wrong, that person would still have “that” and “this,” still be caught in right and wrong, still swayed by deluded feeling and just as muddled; the mind must lean one way, so insight stays dark and unclear. Three people each holding one corner—whose voice should be heard to set things straight? Dian’an means unclear and muddled.

[Gloss on the text]

“Dian’an”: the fanqie pronunciation is close to “tan’an” fanqie; Li Yun says dian’an is the appearance of not being clear.

[Six] Commentary text

Since the text says “to regard you and me as the same,” it means there is no difference between you and me. If you and I were not two in the first place, how could one fixed standard of right and wrong be settled on that basis? This is an extended gloss on the meaning of the first line above.

[Six] Textual note

In “how can” (e neng), “e” is read as “wu”; the same below.

[Seven] Annotation

It is only because things are the same on both sides that one calls them “right”—such a judgment is not enough to win assent.

[Seven] Commentary

The annotation says: it is merely “because they are the same, call it right”—that is not something one can rely on. This explains the second line.

[Eight] Annotation

It is only because things differ on both sides that one rejects the other—likewise that is not enough to serve as a ground.

[Eight] Commentary

Once you and I differ, each side sets up right and wrong and negates the other. When each side clings to one pole of right and wrong, what is there to depend on? This explains the third line.

[Nine] Annotation

If “right” were absolutely right, there ought to be no one in the world still holding “wrong”; if “wrong” were absolutely wrong, there ought to be no one still holding “right.” Yet what we see is: where things are the same, call them right; where they differ, reject each other—sameness and difference are both on display, yet right and wrong have no master. So right and wrong often arise from fondness for disputation; when one returns to “Heaven’s equal measure” (tian jun, natural equilibrium) and entrusts things to “walking both tracks” (liang xing, the two courses that may both stand), each side rights itself in its own place and strife ceases.

[Commentary (continuing nine)]

When each side bends to agree and both poles of right and wrong are indulged, and “you” and “I” are no longer distinguished, how can a single correct principle still be fixed? This explains the fourth line.

[Ten] Annotation

Each side, in its own place, feels itself right—and that is enough. To expect the other party to “make this right” cannot make it right; people under Heaven cannot substitute for one another in fixing standards. So one entrusts each to right itself in its own place, and that is the end of the matter.

[Ten] Commentary

I, you, and others are all persons still in obscurity. Three people each cling to one view and all say they alone are correct, so they cannot understand one another. Even three cannot settle right and wrong—must one then look for a fourth person? If one waits on yet another person, how is that different from the first three? In the annotation, “wait on the other, is it?” (dai bi ye ye) means: one does not need to rely on someone else to decide.

What does “harmonizing with the natural divide” (he zhi yi tian ni) mean?

Answer: Do not insist on “this” versus “not this,” or “so” versus “not so.”

If “this” were truly and only “this,” then the gap between “this” and “not this” would need no further argument; if “so” were truly and only “so,” then the gap between “so” and “not so” would need no further argument either.

“Natural divide” (tian ni) means the boundary and proper share that arise of themselves from nature—not a human-drawn standard of right and wrong.

Because people cling to self versus other and there is no fixed master of right and wrong, disputes like “three people, four statements” cannot settle truth by debate alone; Zhuangzi therefore uses hypothetical question-and-answer to accord with the natural divide, leading people back to no “is” and no “is not.”

“The mutual responding of transforming voices—yet treat them as if they did not respond to each other”:

Various utterances in flux echo one another, yet one must also take them as if they never truly faced off—not as a real contest with winners and losers.

“Harmonize with the natural divide; follow it into easy, spreading elaboration—thus one can talk for a whole lifetime”:

Use the natural divide to reconcile views, then freely extend and unfold along that understanding, so that one could never finish talking in a lifetime (“exhaust the years”).

“Forget years, forget fixation on ‘rightness’; rouse yourself in the unbounded, therefore lodge it all in the unbounded”:

Drop counting by years and drop clinging to “yi” (rightness/duty); stir and roam where there is no end, and so entrust the teaching to what has no end.

(Note: In older commentaries, “tian ni” is sometimes written as “tian yan,” with similar sound and sense—both point to nature’s own dividing line.)

Commentary

“Bian” (discrimination) means setting things apart in opposition. Right and wrong, “so” and “not-so,” all arise from restless human consciousness; examined by reason, the whole dispute is empty—what is called “right” is not necessarily truly right, and what is called “so” is not necessarily truly so. How do we see this? If “right” could be fixed once and for all as right, it would have to be utterly cut off from “wrong”; if “so” could be fixed as so, it would have to be utterly cut off from “not-so.” Yet in actual life, one side calls something right while another calls it wrong; one side treats it as so while another treats it as not-so. Thus right and wrong, so and not-so, have no fixed boundary in principle—they are only mutual standoffs and imposed distinctions. Hence “wu bian” (no discrimination): there is no need to fight over names and appearances.

Annotation (section 3)

Disputes over right and wrong, in Zhuangzi’s view, are often called “huasheng” (transforming utterances)—sayings that shift with circumstance and judgments that differ from person to person. Such transforming utterances stand over against one another, yet none of them suffices as a final standard by which to correct the others. So one may also say: they ought not to be “treated as equals and matched against each other,” bound to one another as if one were the measure of the other.

Commentary

Right and wrong, “that” and “this,” exist only as paired names; pursued by reason, “dai” (mutual dependence and contrast) itself is not real. Transforming speech gives rise to these names that exist only in contrast; since the names are not real, what they “depend on” is a hollow dependence. Dependence is thereby non-dependence—hence one knows there is no need for mutual dependence or mutual hanging-on.

Note by Jia Shifu

Speech changes with things—this is called “huasheng.” “Is” and “is not,” “so” and “not-so,” fall within human discrimination. Whether one waits for others to decide what is right or what is so before calling it so, or does not wait and lets each thing be as it naturally is—in both cases, for the mind it is the same path: neither clings to right and wrong as something truly to be hung on the heart. This is “he zhi yi tian ni” (harmonizing with the natural pivot of Heaven).

Annotation (section 4)

Use the divisions that nature already has to harmonize; allow oneself to unfold within boundless transformation. Pursue this “natural” way consistently, and the mind is no longer led by right and wrong—this is “he zhi yi tian ni.”

Annotation (section 4, continued)

Harmonize by following natural divisions; act by yielding to limitless transformation. Going on in this way, the edges of right and wrong fade of themselves, and the destination of fulfilling one’s natural span and preserving life and nature appears on its own.

Commentary

“Manyan” means to change with transformation, spreading and flowing freely; “yin” is to follow and accord; “qiong” is to reach the end, to arrive at completion. Because one harmonizes with natural divisions, there is no fixed right and wrong in the mind; because one acts by yielding to limitless transformation, one does not stick at a single point or cling to one side. Living in accord with the times in this way, one can fulfill one’s natural years and preserve life and nature in full.

Commentary (doctrinal explanation)

Wangliang is the fainter shade beyond a shadow; nang means “a moment ago” or “just now”; te here means du—“alone” or “on one’s own.”

Zhuangzi often uses parables to unfold subtle principle, so he has “Jing” (the shadow) and “Wangliang” (the shade outside the shadow) converse to show that the ten thousand things each “transform alone”—each changes naturally without leaning on something else.

Wangliang asked Jing: “You walked a moment ago and now you stop; you sat a moment ago and now you rise. So your walking, stopping, sitting, and rising all follow the body—you only move along with something else and have no independent aim or constancy of your own. Why is that?”

Textual notes (pronunciation and variant readings)

Wangliang: Guo Xiang glosses it as the faint yin outside a shadow; Xiang Xiu as the shadow of a shadow. Cui Zhan’s text has wanglang, the form between being and non-being.

(The rest is collation: Qingfan’s note, Sima Biao’s wanglang, citations in Wenxuan commentary, and so on—differences in wording and glosses across versions; omitted here.)

Jing: pronounced like yong, or as the character itself; some manuscripts write ying (shadow), a popular form.

Nang: Xu Miao reads nǎng; Xiang Xiu glosses “toward / formerly.”

Wu te: in some texts te is chi. Cui Zhan says te is a particle; Xiang Xiu says wu te means movement and rest have no fixed rule.

Cao yu: yu is read yú.

Jing said: “Do I act this way because I depend on something? Does what I depend on also depend on something else in turn? Do I depend on a snake’s scales or a cicada’s wings? How can we know why it is so! And how can we know why it is not so!”

[1] [Commentary]

Meaning: the heavenly mechanism is inherently thus—sitting and rising do not wait on outer things. What does not wait on the outer yet each attains its own suchness—who can trace the cause or press the question “why so”?

Commentary

The forms of the ten thousand things all receive their allotment from nature; events seem to have causes, yet in arising they depend on nothing. What does not wait on the outer but alone obtains its place—who can know the reason or go on asking “therefore”?

Commentary

The form and substance of all things come from what nature endows them with; affairs may seem each to have its own cause, yet in principle they do not depend on anything else. Shadow and physical form were never separate to begin with—within that relation there is inherent natural spontaneity. Hence it is said: the myriad kinds of things differ in shape, yet not one fails to be “dúhuà”—each arising and changing on its own, without needing something else.

Note (second)

If you trace what a thing depends on, then ask what that dependency itself depends on, the inquiry can go on without end, until you must stop at “wúdài”—no longer relying on any external condition. Then the meaning of “dúhuà” becomes clear.

Commentary

What a shadow depends on is the physical form. If one says the shadow must depend on the form and the form must depend on a maker, then ask: what does the maker depend on? Layer upon layer of “waiting for what is waited upon” leads to endless questioning; in the end one must admit that from the outset there is wúdài, and the myriad things dúhuà.

Note (third)

If one insists that (the shadow) depends on scales under a snake’s belly or on a cicada’s wings, one cannot find a basis for its own independent operation—then it is easier to grasp, nothing more than embodied things mutually entangled. The reason it is hard to understand now is precisely that it does not depend on such concrete parts but dúhuà.

Commentary

Many past interpreters of Zhuangzi and readers of Guo Xiang’s commentary took “shéfù” as the scales under the snake’s belly that help it move, and “chántì” as the cicada’s wings, saying: the snake moves by scales, the cicada flies by wings, the shadow exists by the form—as if that were literally so. If it were, then every winged creature would wait on wings to fly and every legged creature on legs to walk; birds and beasts would be beyond counting—why single out only snake and cicada?

One reading today: fù means the snake’s shed old skin, and yì means the cicada’s shed exuviae (shell). Why sloughing and emergence happen as they do cannot be investigated; one can only acknowledge natural dúhuà and original wúdài. Guo Xiang cites these two creatures because shedding skin and shell differs from other cases—he uses them to illustrate that the relation of shadow to form, like sloughing and emergence, is comparable in “not waiting on something else yet changing of itself.” The Outer Chapters phrase “Do I wait on snake fù and cicada jiǎ?” has the same point: the shadow does not “wait” for some add-on apart from the form; it shares with the form the spontaneity of dúhuà.

Some argue that a shadow must depend on an “image” (the figure cast by light), the image on a physical form, and the form on a maker of things. Then one must ask: Does such a maker exist or not?

If you say it does not, how could it produce the myriad things?

If you say it does, a single maker would not suffice to bring forth endlessly many forms.

Only when “each thing takes shape on its own” is fully explained can one even speak of “making things.” Once we enter a world where things already exist, even when we talk of shadows and images, nothing fails to gestate in the dark mystery (xuánmíng), each becoming itself. Therefore making has no sovereign lord; each thing makes itself and need not wait on anything else—this is the right pattern of Heaven and earth.

“This” and “I” mutually depend on each other; form and image arise together. Though they secretly accord, neither waits on nor leans on the other. Whoever grasps this lets the myriad things return each to the inner root of its own being, without begging outwardly; without gratitude toward the outside, without self-congratulation within. Then the myriad things are born of themselves, yet do not know how they are born; each obtains its place alike, yet does not know how it obtained it.

Today, a shadow’s depending on an image is like saying the two arise together rather than wait on each other. Then, though the myriad things gather and jointly complete “Heaven,” each remains distinct and manifests on its own. So a shadow is not “made” by an image, an image is not “driven” by a form, and a form is not “transformed out of” nothingness. Whether there is transformation or not, whether it is so or not so—viewed from others or from oneself—it is all just as it is; how can I know for certain what makes it so!

Therefore, letting each thing be natural without forcing assistance, root and branch, inner and outer, all flow freely and find their place, blending into one without leaving a trace. If one pursues only the proximate “cause” before one’s eyes and forgets that each is inherently self-so, anchoring the root in outer things and losing the master within, craving and clinging arise. Even if one wishes to equalize and unify, what one clings to is already in the heart—how could there be true leveling?

The same line—“how can I know for certain what makes it so”—stresses again: let things be natural without helping, and root, branch, inner, and outer all flourish together, vanishing without a mark; if one blames the nearby cause and forgets self-so, lodges the root in externals and loses the inner master, preference rises—though one wants to equalize, what is preferred is already in the chest; how speak of calm, even leveling!

On “depending” and “not depending,” “so” and “not so”

Whether one should rely on external things, and what counts as right or wrong—these unfold from the natural workings of Heaven’s mechanism; no one can say for sure who is in charge. How could someone who insists on sorting right from wrong in the mind and reckoning everything by deliberation ever grasp this?

Zhuangzi’s Dream of the Butterfly (main sense of the passage)

Long ago Zhuang Zhou dreamed he had turned into a butterfly—a fluttering butterfly, light and free, entirely as a butterfly should be. His heart was delighted and fully at ease; he forgot that he was still Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke and was clearly Zhuang Zhou again. Had Zhuang Zhou dreamed he became a butterfly, or had the butterfly dreamed it became Zhuang Zhou? Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be a distinction. This is what is called wuhua—the transformation of things, in which the boundary between self and other shifts and converts.

Plain-language notes on the commentary

Xuxu describes a glad, unburdened ease; yu here carries the sense of clarity and pleasant satisfaction. The alternation of birth and decay, the cycle of cold and heat—these are the constant way of Heaven and earth and the pattern of the ten thousand things. Zhuangzi, with a bright mirror reflecting things and skill in roaming the Dao, could therefore place dream and waking, life and death on the same plane, and lodge both “self” and “other” within wuhua. Hence in the dream he is a butterfly, glad at heart; on waking he is still Zhuang Zhou, his intent fully fulfilled.

A few pronunciation and character notes in the exegesis (for reading the original)

Sang is glossed with an old fanqie-style reading note; hudie is the common word for butterfly; xu suggests a pleased countenance; some commentators write pian (fluttering) for a similar effect. In ziyu, yu means ease and satisfaction; in zhi yu, yu is a final particle, like zai (“indeed” / “is it not?”).

Commentary

At one moment he is a butterfly, fully aware, at ease and pleased—here it only says “he is a butterfly,” with no recognition of Zhuang Zhou. After death one does not know what happened in life; the principle is the same.

Commentary

When he has just become a butterfly, he is clear and very delighted; above it only says he is a butterfly—(in the text “yi” should read as “bu,” “not”) and he does not recognize Zhuang Zhou. At death one does not know the living state; the reasoning matches.

Note [3]

Only from the side of “Zhuang Zhou” can one call it “awakening”; that need not mean it is not still a dream.

Commentary

“Ququ” (qūqū) describes startled waking and sudden realization. In a moment the dream ends, he is startled into awareness and only then knows he is Zhuang Zhou. Hence the note: calling it “awakening” from Zhou’s perspective does not prove it is not a dream.

Textual notes

In the pronunciation glosses, “jue” in “ran jue” follows the ancient xiao reading; “ququ” Xu’s note gives readings near “qu” or “qilü.” Li Yun: has concrete form. Cui’s text reads “juju,” citing Great Master “juran jue.”

Note [4]

Now, awake, he does not know the butterfly—just as in the dream he did not know Zhuang Zhou. Each moment suits the mind of that moment, so one cannot fix that the butterfly did not become Zhuang Zhou in the dream. Some people doze and dream a hundred years; likewise one cannot fix that this present hundred years is not the dream of a doze.

Commentary

Once he dreamed he was a butterfly and was very pleased; now as Zhuang Zhou he also says his will is satisfied. So waking and dreaming have no fixed standard; why must Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly be argued as real or unreal?

Note [5] (alternate view)

The distinction between waking and dreaming is not very different from that between life and death. Here “satisfied will” is self-metaphor because names and boundaries are already set—not because there was never any distinction to begin with.

Commentary

There is waking and dreaming, butterfly and Zhuang; if one says everything is empty flux, that still does not erase boundary and distinction.

Six (continued)

[Commentary] Time does not stand still; once today passes, it is no longer “the present.” Dreams from yesterday have already shifted by today. How is the flux of life and death any different? Why wear yourself out in the middle of it? While you are “here,” you do not know “there”—Zhuang Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly is exactly this. Applied to a human life, within a single lifetime the present does not know what comes after—the story of Lady Li is exactly this. Yet the obtuse secretly fancy they know that living is joy and dying is pain—they have never heard of the principle of “transformation of things.”

[Sub-commentary] Ever new, ever changing—myriad things are in flux. It is like flexing a finger or crossing the arms: only an instant. Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly, dream and waking—in the blink of an eye the later moment does not know the earlier. This is “not knowing the other.” Since that is so, why still scheme for life and grieve over death, raising sorrow for nothing? Know that coming and going between life and death is simply the constant transformation of things.

[Pronunciation note] In “ke le” (what is enjoyable), “le” is read as luo.

Volume 2, Upper, Inner Chapters: Nourishing Life (Yang sheng zhu), Chapter Three

One

[Commentary] Life is sustained only through nurturing; thus “nourishing life” is the utmost in governing life. But if nurturing is pushed too far and the art of nurturing ends up harming life, that is no longer the point of nourishing life.

[Pronunciation note] Nourishing life takes the above principle as its foundation.

Main Text with Commentary and Sub-commentary

My life has a limit, yet knowledge has no limit.

Human life is finite, while knowledge is boundless.

To pursue the limitless with the limited is perilous.

Using a finite life to chase inexhaustible knowledge is dangerous!

And for one who already knows this yet still pursues knowledge, the peril is even greater.

Those who already know this danger yet still drill after knowledge are courting danger all the more.

In doing good, do not approach fame; in doing ill, do not approach punishment.

When doing good, do not go so far as to seek reputation; when doing wrong, do not go so far as to brush the edge of punishment. (Leave margin in action—do not deliberately parade virtue, nor tread on the law’s line.)

Take following the central channel as your constant method.

Make “following the middle meridian” (the dumai, the central line of the body—metaphor for the unbiased middle way) your regular practice.

Then you can preserve the body, complete life, nourish parents, and live out your years.

Thus one can keep the body intact, fulfill life, support one’s parents, and exhaust one’s natural span of years.

[Pronunciation note] Nourishing life takes this as its main principle.

[1] Summary of the Commentary

Yá means one’s proper portion and limit. Living in the world, we receive a body and inherit nature; foolishness and wisdom, long life and short life each have its allotted share and its boundary. Those who know where to stop and keep to their portion, without reckless action beyond it, hold the essential secret of nurturing life. As for ordinary people, none fails to call themselves “I”; everyone who does so in that way also has a limit and cannot expand without bound.

(The exegesis mostly records old pronunciations, e.g. “you yá” written as “you yái,” etc.—omitted here.)

[2] Summary of the Note

To lift heavy things as if they were light and to keep a calm bearing is the utmost of physical strength. Yet those who crave reputation and compete for victory, even with extraordinary muscle, still cannot fill their desires—because zhi (discrimination, calculation, the urge to know and compare) has no outer edge. Thus zhi, as a name and appearance, arises from missing what is fitting and is extinguished in mingji.

Mingji is fully entrusting oneself to the limit of one’s own portion, without adding so much as a hair’s breadth beyond it. Therefore: bearing ten thousand jun of weight, so long as it stays within what one’s portion allows, one suddenly no longer feels the body’s heaviness; facing ten thousand affairs, one is wholly unaware that affairs weigh on the person—this is the master of nurturing life (the root and sovereign of cultivating life).

[2] Commentary (Subcommentary)

Form and nature each have limits, while discriminating zhi chases externals without end; then mind wearies and form is strained, yet desire still goes unsatisfied and one cannot stop at one’s portion—then one is no longer the master of nurturing life.

(The repeated notes and exegesis that follow repeat the same content as above, as variant readings in different editions; the vernacular explanation need not spell them out again.)

[Three] To use a finite life and limited endowment in pursuit of knowledge without bounds—how could one fail to fall into distress?

Commentary: Life is limited, yet the quest for knowledge seems endless. If one spends a finite lifetime chasing limitless understanding, the body wears down and the spirit is spent, and one lands in peril.

Textual note: Xiang Xiu (Wei–Jin commentator on the Zhuangzi) explains that dai in dai yi means exhaustion and weariness.

[Four] Already worn out in “knowing” and still unwilling to stop, then trying to fix the situation by learning more “knowing”—that is to nurture and yet harm at once; it is grave peril indeed.

Commentary: Boundless knowing has already drained a person in front; purposeful learning in the worldly sense comes from behind to “rescue” him. How could he not be in peril! ◎ My father said: striving urgently to know, pushing on to the boundless, one ends in dai (exhaustion). When such restless knowing lodges in the heart, it is enough to burden one’s nature and harm the mind. If one can merge silently with transformation and hold the spirit in stillness, so that knowing is not born in the heart, nature is preserved intact, and knowing is extinguished to preserve life, then it is said, “Those who go on to ‘knowing’ are already at an end—exhausted.”

[Five] Forget the discrimination of good and evil and hold the center; let the ten thousand things each be as they are; in quiet unity merge with what is ultimately fitting—then punitive law and reputation withdraw from your person, while the full pattern of principle remains in you.

Commentary: Worldly learning with purposeful striving has a great following; in short, nothing surpasses good and evil. Doing good always tends toward seeking a name; doing evil always tends toward punishment and disgrace. Thus vulgar cleverness and vulgar learning cannot remedy the harm of prior knowing; they only further enslave the mind and increase peril.

This passage is collation and commentary from Zhuangzi Jishi (Collected Explanations on the Zhuangzi), not Zhuangzi’s own text. The gist is as follows.

[Textual notes (shiwen)]

• Wujin (“Not drawing near”): Here jin is read as jin in the sense of “nearby” or “close at hand.” The same applies below.
• Qing Fan notes: In Wenxuan, Ji Kang’s Youfen shi (Poem of Hidden Resentment), with a citation of Sima Biao: do not deliberately chase fame; wear coarse cloth while cherishing jade within, and willingly appear lowly so as not to stand out in outward form.
• Comment by the author’s paternal uncle: Wang Fuzhi (Chuanshan) held that things that cannot be called “good”—such as sound and color—are in fact “evil.”
• Menran (“dull, closed off”): Here the character read as wang is given the fanqie pronunciation keyed to men.
• Yuan ji (“keeping distant from the self”): Here the character read as ji is given the fanqie pronunciation keyed to wan.

[Comment (zhu)]

Act in accord with zhong (the center, what is neither biased nor extreme), and take that as the constant way.

[Subcommentary (shu)] (clarifying the meaning)

Yuan means to follow along; du means the exact center; jing means the constant way. When both good and evil are forgotten and both punishment and reputation are set aside, one can follow the path of “holding to the center,” dwelling in genuine, enduring virtue; empty, still, and harmonious, yielding to things as they come, changing together with the world. The crux of nurturing life lies here.

[Six] is an entry number within the chapter; it connects to the note above on “following the center as constant.”

Li Yun explains that yuan means to follow or go along, du means the center or middle, and jing means a constant method or rule. Guo Xiang and Cui Huan give the same reading.

Qing Fan notes that a commentary on Zuo Si’s Rhapsody on the Wei Capital in the Wen xuan, citing Sima Biao, takes yuan as “follow” and du as “center”: to follow and hold the way of the middle as one’s constant practice. The transmitted gloss is incomplete.

Li Zhen argues from the medical classics: the Su wen “Bone Cavity” chapter says the Governing Vessel (Du mai) runs from the lower abdomen down to the center of the bone; the Ling shu “Root and Transport” chapter places the seventh vessel at the center of the neck—that is the Governing Vessel. On the body only the spine sits in the true middle, with the Governing Vessel ascending along it, so interpreting “central du” as one of the eight extraordinary vessels is medically grounded. In Zhuangzi the author is borrowing pulse physiology as a metaphor, which is why the passage goes on to speak of preserving the body and completing one’s life.

Jia Shifu reports Wang Fuzhi’s view that among the eight extraordinary vessels, the Conception (Ren) and Governing (Du) vessels chiefly govern the breath. The vessel on the front midline is Ren; on the back midline, Du. Du stays in stillness without leaning left or right—it has a locus in the channels but no fixed substantial form. “Following du” (yuan du) means letting clear, subtle qi move through emptiness; where it can go no further it naturally stops. The flow is self-adjusting and hits the mean.

Note on section seven: Use a fitting, appropriate way to support and care for one’s parents.

Note and commentary on section eight: If one can attain the middle and align with the measure that merges with the dark unknown, then in all affairs nothing need be impossible. Nourishing life is not about pushing to extremes; it is simply following principle and living out one’s allotted years.

The commentary adds: only by skillfully letting go of bias toward either side and holding to the “single middle” can one preserve the bodily form and the path of life. Outwardly one can serve parents with filial piety and honor human relationships; inwardly one can nurture body and mind and fulfill one’s heavenly mandate (tianming).

Textual note (variant readings in parentheses may be skipped by general readers): One reading has “qi” instead of “ji”; “mai” follows the Suwen emendation.

Butcher Ding was carving an ox for Lord Wen-hui. Paoding means a cook or slaughterer (today’s kitchen worker); some say “Ding” is a personal name. Lord Wen-hui is King Hui of Liang. Jie means to slaughter and cut apart.

Wherever his hand touched, his shoulder leaned, his foot stepped, and his knee pressed, the flesh parted with a swift ripping sound; when the knife entered there was a thudding sound—nothing off the beat. The motions matched the rhythm of the Dance of the Mulberry Forest and the harmony of the Jingshou assembly.

Notes on key terms

• Dance of the Mulberry Forest and Jingshou assembly: names of ancient music; the knife-work is likened to dance in time with the music.
• Commentators often read this passage as teaching nurturing life, acting in accord with principle, and steering the body with spirit rather than brute force.

The Explanatory Text first gives a phonetic gloss for zhong, reading it according to the fanqie ding-zhong, and states that the similar phonetic glosses below follow this example. It then explains Sanglin: Sima Biao says it was the name of the music of Shang Tang; Cui Zhuan says it was the name of a dance-music of the state of Song; the commentator holds that it is the music and dance referred to in the Zuo Zhuan as “the dance master led with the jingxia banner.” Jingshou: Xiang Xiu and Sima Biao say it was a musical movement of the Xianchi; Cui Zhuan says it was the name of a musical movement; some also say it was the name of a performance piece. Yinbian is read according to the fanqie bi-mian, and xianjie is read with the sound xie. These phonetic and semantic notes are meant to explain that when Cook Ding dismembered the ox, the rhythm of his knife sounds could harmonize with ancient music.

Lord Wenhui said: “Xi, excellent! How can skill reach such a level?” The subcommentary explains that xi is a sound of admiration; Lord Wenhui saw Cook Ding follow the natural momentum and apply his skill, so that the sound and rhythm of his knife movement harmonized with musical movements, and therefore he praised his skill for reaching such a realm. The Explanatory Text also notes that Xu Miao reads xi like xi, and Li Yi says it is a sigh; ji is read according to the fanqie ju-qi, and the same applies below.

Cook Ding put down his knife and replied: “What I love is the Dao; the Dao has already advanced beyond skill. At first, when I dismembered oxen, what I saw was nothing but a whole ox; after three years, his understanding no longer stopped at this view of the whole ox, but gradually penetrated into the ox’s sinew and bone structure.” Cook Ding’s answer shows that his dismembering of oxen was no longer merely skill, but a case of entering the Dao through skill, and his understanding gradually deepened from the view of the whole ox.

Cook Ding put down his knife and replied: “What I care for is the Dao (the Way); it has long gone beyond ordinary craft. When I first began butchering oxen, all I saw was the whole ox—I had no idea where to cut. After three years, I no longer saw the ox as a whole. Now I meet it with my spirit, not with my eyes; sense and perception have quieted, and the spirit moves as it should. I follow the natural grain of the body, slip the blade through the gaps between the major joints, find the large hollows, and work with the structure that is already there. I never touch the ligaments or where sinew clings—still less the big bones. A good cook changes his knife once a year because he cuts; an ordinary cook changes his once a month because he hacks and breaks bone. My knife has been in use nineteen years; I have butchered thousands of oxen, yet the edge is still like fresh from the whetstone. The joints have space between them, while the blade has no thickness; putting something without thickness into places that have space, the blade has more than room to move—so after nineteen years it is still like fresh from the whetstone. Even so, whenever I come to a tangle of sinew and bone where the cut is hard, I watch sharply, fix my gaze where it must stop, and slow my hand. I move the knife with the utmost lightness—then with a rustle the ox falls apart like a clod of earth to the ground. I stand with the knife in hand, look all around, feel satisfied and pleased, wipe the blade clean, and put it away.”

(Commentarial gist: Zhuangzi has Cook Ding say that what he loves is the Dao, not technique alone; “going beyond craft” means the Way he loves surpasses the skill of butchering.)

Plain-Language Commentary

[2] Another reading tied to Lord Wen Hui: jin (“advance”) is taken to mean “to surpass”—what he truly esteems is the dao of nurturing life (yangsheng), a level far above mere skill at butchering an ox.

[Textual note] The fanqie gloss for suo hao (“what one is devoted to”) matches the note above.

[2] [Commentary] (Cook Ding) had not yet reached the state described as tiao li xian shu—“leisurely, thorough mastery of structure.”

[Subcommentary] At first, learning butchery, he had not yet internalized the ox’s inner layout; his eyes still saw “a whole ox.” That is like someone new to yangsheng: they have not yet discerned life’s real terrain, so every move feels blocked and awkward.

[3] [Commentary] (Later) he had come to see li (structure/principle) with that same ease and familiarity.

[Subcommentary] After long use of the knife, the pattern suddenly stood clear and the hands moved freely: the ox was only just visible, yet the mind already knew where to cut into empty space and where to avoid the vital parts. So too in long dao practice: insight brightens, and the world’s affairs appear insubstantial.

[4] [Commentary] A hidden meeting—a natural fit with li.

[Subcommentary] Yu here means hui (“to meet”). Nineteen years align with the yin–yang cycle; spirit communes with li—why rely on the eyes to “look”? The adept who subtly accords with the utmost realm uses the mind’s empty illumination to meet li; that is not grasping externals with the eyes.

[Textual note] Xiang Xiu: meeting li in secret is called shen yu (“encounter through spirit,” not through sight).

[5] [Commentary] The “official” faculties of inspection stop; one follows the heart and moves with li.

[Subcommentary] Guan means the supervising faculties: the eye for color, the ear for sound, and the like. Once there is shen yu, visual looking is unnecessary, so eye and the other supervisors cease; one acts from the heart in accord with li. Those skilled at yangsheng follow the same logic.

[Textual note] Guan zhi zhi (“the officials’ knowing stops”) is read according to the plain sense of the characters. Cui Yuan: guan zhi means the supervising faculties come to rest; one follows the heart and accords with li—the parallel for good yangsheng is the same.

Overall thread

This commentarial layer uses Cook Ding butchering the ox as a figure for yangsheng: at first one sees the “whole ox” and is hindered; in time one achieves shen yu and guan zhi zhi—the heart meets li without depending on eye and ear. That follows Zhuangzi’s “rely on heavenly li” and “encounter with spirit, not with sight.”

Plain-Language Interpretation

[Commentary] “Kenqi” refers to the gaps and joints where flesh attaches to bone; “gu” (large bone) means the thick, heavy bones. A master of the art lets the knife move through open spaces and never once catches on the slightest obstruction—so naturally he never hacks at those large bones. How much more so for one who nurtures life, applies wisdom, and realizes the “subtle body and empty suchness”: even fine delusion does not stain the mind—how could worldly dust and burdens drag down such virtue?

[Textual notes] In Da gu, “gu” is read gu. Xiang Xiu and Guo Xiang say “gu” means to strike or hit a large bone. Cui Zhuan says it means bones knotted together. In nu dao, “nu” is read nü liu fan (reverse of liu nü).

[12][Annotation] Missing the point of principle—only busying oneself in vain.

[Commentary] Even a skilled cook has not yet cut along “li” (the natural grain and gaps in the ox)—and replaces his knife every year. How much more those who learn only the surface, who have not tasted the true Dao and waver between “realizing emptiness” and “clinging to existence,” easily shifting their views?

[Textual notes] Sima Biao says: in liang pao, “liang” means good, skilled. He also says “ge ye” (cutting): using the knife to slice flesh, hence a new knife each year. Cui Zhuan says: changing the knife once a year still barely suffices for cutting.

[13][Annotation] Hitting bone and breaking the knife.

[Commentary] As for the mediocre and shallow, with blocked minds they stumble at every turn—inevitably harming wisdom and injuring spirit.

[Textual notes] Sima Biao says: in zu pao, “zu” means mixed, ordinary. Cui Zhuan says “zu” means the multitude, common people. ◎ Yu Yue notes: Guo Xiang’s gloss “zhong gu er zhe dao” (hitting bone and breaking the knife) does not quite fit the sense. Above, the good cook “changes knife yearly—cutting”: “ge” is said of the knife’s use, so “zhe” should likewise be said of the knife and of chopping—“zhe” should mean breaking bone, not the knife snapping. Compare Zuozhuan, Duke Ai year 1: “wu zhe gu” (do not break bone)—for reference.

[14] Commentary and Sub-commentary

Commentary: Xing denotes the whetstone used to sharpen a blade.

Sub-commentary: Xing means the grindstone on which a knife is honed. Ten is the yin number and nine the yang number, so “nineteen years” symbolizes yin and yang brought into utmost harmony. Thus Pao Ding wielded his knife for nineteen years, slaughtered thousands of oxen, moved through emptiness and void, yet never dulled the edge—it stayed as keen as when freshly ground. Those skilled at nurturing life exhaust wisdom in “emptiness” and “being,” blend their light with the dust of the world, and carry yin-yang subtlety to its limit; though they pass through endless change, their De (Virtue/Power) ever renews itself; though they touch myriad realms, the inner mind stays clear, still, and concentrated.

Gloss (sound and meaning): Xing (grindstone)—the blade stays sharp as if newly honed. Those who nurture life well exhaust wisdom in emptiness and being, harmonize their light with the world, and bring yin-yang wonder to completion; through myriad transformations they constantly renew their De, and amid countless realms they remain clear and still. Xing is read xing; in Cui’s edition the graph is written as xing (form), glossed as “the newly received form.” Dishi (whetstone) is read zhi, also zhilü fan. Shangshu zhuan says: di is finer than li—both are sharpening stones.

[15] Sub-commentary

The joints of the ox naturally have gaps; the knife edge is sharp and thin, not thick. Using a blade with no thickness, one enters joints that have space—hence “plenty of room for the blade to play” (youyu youyu): there is necessarily ample margin. How much more so for those who nurture life and embody the Dao: they deploy the subtle wisdom of “utmost forgetting,” roam in a domain like empty space, arrange affairs aptly and act appropriately in every situation, with leisure to spare—realm and wisdom merge in darkness, neither one nor many.

[16] Sub-commentary

The foregoing is said again in layered form to gather the full meaning to a close.

[17] Commentary

(The ox body’s) interwoven, knotted, clustered (complex structure).

[18] Commentary

(Pao Ding) no longer splits his gaze among other things.

Gloss: Wei jie—fan of wei (artifice), same below. Shu mu (fix the eyes): one edition reads zhang, fan liuyu.

[19] Commentary

(Skill requires) slowing the movement of the hands.

Gloss: Xu qishou—let the hands move gradually and without haste.

【Exegesis】 Where bone and joint cross and knot together is called a “cluster” (zu—the gathering point of a joint). Though the blade roams in the gaps and skillfully avoids the joints, at every crossing one still does not disregard the difficulty there: the mind stays wary and careful, and the hand deliberately slows. All the more for one who has awakened to the Dao (the Way): though able to penetrate the realm of emptiness and illusion, when boundary and wisdom meet and interweave, one must still guard against hardship and not lightly take up the dust of the six senses—one stir, and stillness is broken.

【20】【Annotation】 Find the fitting method, and the force you use is slight.

【Textual note】 “Xie ran” is read hua bai fan; Xu also gives xu bai fan. “Yi jie” is pronounced xie (same below).

【21】【Annotation】 Once freed, no knife-mark shows—as when earth falls to the ground.

【Exegesis】 “Xie” is read hua bai fan. “Xie ran” is the sound of flesh and bone parting. The swing of the fine blade is exceedingly subtle; following tianli (heavenly principle) makes it unlabored, like a clod of earth striking the ground—what trace could remain? How much more when one deploys shen (spirit) and intelligence and illumines the subtle: passing through the dusty world without obstruction; realm and wisdom merge in silence, and taker and taken both vanish without remainder.

【22】【Annotation】 Ease and leisure, joy in oneself—this is called “the swift foot at ease in contentment” (yizu rongyu).

【Exegesis】 When the butchering is done, relaxed and at ease, he lifts the knife and lingers, leaning at rest. Then his bearing is clear and far-reaching; he lifts his gaze to the four quarters, his qi (vital energy) full, and hesitates in satisfied self-possession. Nourishing life by grasping principle—principle is just like this.

【Textual note】 “Ti dao”: Xu reads tu xi fan. “Chou”: zhi liu fan. “Chu”: zhi yu fan.

【23】【Annotation】 Wipe the blade and return it to the sheath.

【Exegesis】 A good cook changes knives every year because he cuts; an ordinary cook every month because he chops. This knife has served nineteen years; thousands of oxen have been taken apart, yet the edge is like newly whetted steel. The blade roams in the gaps between joints and has not yet touched bone; when it meets a joint, the knife in his hand never fails. Someone asked the butcher for instruction. The butcher said: I do not use my own knife—I follow heavenly principle. Heavenly principle is the structure the ox already has; I do not force my own blade against it, hence nineteen years with an edge like new. That is the meaning of nourishing life by aligning with principle.

Commentary on “Shan Dao” (Keeping the Knife in Good Order)

Commentators explain that shan in “shan dao” means to wipe and maintain the blade properly. Shi is read as shi (to wipe); tao zhi means to sheath the knife and put it away unused. Just as a blade must be cleaned and returned to its scabbard to last, nurturing human life follows the same principle: having inner light without flaunting it, gathering and protecting oneself—only then can one endure.

Duke Wen of Wei Praises Cook Ding

Duke Wen of Wei said: “Well said! After hearing Cook Ding, I understand how to nurture life.”

Note: If a knife can be kept in good order, life too can be kept in good order. Commentary: The duke heard Cook Ding’s account of using the knife and grasped the principle of nurturing life; he praised its subtlety, hence his exclamation “Excellent!”

Gongwen Xuan Meets You Shi

Gongwen Xuan saw You Shi (an official title) and asked in astonishment: “Who is this? Why does he have only one leg, as if yuezu (the punishment of having a foot cut off)? Was it Heaven (nature) or human beings (punishment)?”

You Shi replied: “Heaven, not human agency. Heaven made him this way, leaving him du (single-legged, unlike the usual form). Human form is normally you yu (paired, symmetrical); from that we know this was Heaven’s arrangement, not man’s.”

Note: Jie denotes being lopsided or having suffered foot amputation. Gongwen Xuan saw You Shi’s mutilated foot and asked in alarm what crime had caused it; You Shi explained it was innate nature, not judicial punishment.

Vernacular Explanations and Commentarial Notes on “Gong Wen Xuan”

Persons and Pronunciation

• Gong Wen Xuan: surname Gong, given name Xuan, a man of Song (Warring States Song).
• Yu Shi: a man of Song; some say Yu Shi is an official title (“Right Master”).
• E hu: read like wu; interrogative tone, roughly “how” or “where.”
• Jie: also read jie (as in jie), or wu. Sima Biao takes it as amputated or maimed limbs; Xiang Xiu and Guo Xiang take it as pian yue (only one foot cut off); in Cui Hao’s textual line it appears as wu or a lacuna, with the same sense of foot-cutting.

One School’s Reading (Father’s Line)

Those skilled at nurturing life nourish by Shen (spirit—the whole of mind and intent), not by nurturing form alone. When Shen is complete, life is complete; even if the body has jie (missing a foot or partial impairment), that can still suffice. A pheasant in a cage may have Shen that could be called “kingly,” yet it does not receive the right way of nurturing. The Shen meant here is the one that is plain, sparse, at ease, and unfettered—dwelling in wuwei (non-action), free and self-sufficient. If it can thereby outwardly align the bodily form and inwardly align birth and death, why be bound by jie?

(Here jie is explained as: the form may be defective yet wholeness of life is still possible—the crux is Shen.)

Pian yue is read yue; also wu gua fan in fanqie notation.

[2] Annotation

What knowledge and effort cannot reach, attribute to Tian (Heaven: fate, the natural); knowing something cannot be done yet doing it anyway—that is human affairs.

[3] Commentary

Pian yue is also called du (one-footed, single-legged).

Yu Shi stands for “one school’s learning, one school’s knowing.” If one clings only to that school’s knowing yet cannot keep both feet intact, that shows precisely that knowing has what cannot be helped—knowing cannot cover everything.

If one relied on Yu Shi’s kind of zhi (knowing) and still insisted on “both feet whole” (form, reputation, and bodily completeness all demanded), then spirit would be trapped within and the bodily frame worn out without—far worse than pian yue alone!

Pronunciation (repeated entries)

In “Tian yu qi ren yu”, yu is read yu (like the character yu), or as written; Sima Biao: one question ascribes it to Heaven’s mandate, one to human affairs.

Cheng Xuanying’s Commentary: Cleverness and dullness, wholeness of the body and mutilation—all are endowed by nature and are not something human affairs can decide. Even when one violates the king’s law and suffers bodily mutilation, that too comes from innate stubbornness and failure to manage one’s life. People only see that “human beings” mutilate the body; they do not see that “Heaven” also dims the intelligence. Thus whether one has two feet or only one, in each case it is ultimately ming (fate, natural allotment).

Textual Note (Sima Biao, Shi Du): Having one foot is called du (“single”). Read zhi zhi as zhi (“wisdom”); the same below.

Guo Xiang’s Commentary (4): Walking on two feet together is called you yu (“having a pair”). As for the form of one who you yu, no one doubts that it is not ming.

Guo Xiang’s Commentary (5): Those who you yu are ming; therefore the one-footed are likewise not “self.” One who has penetrated the real situation of life does not vainly seek anything in this.