《庄子集释》Vol. 6

Vernacular Interpretation

On Pronunciation and Textual Variants (Collation Notes)

One character is thought to be read by the fanqie (reverse-spelling) value for mai (“to sell”), and also as yi. Some manuscripts write you (wart). The character ci (flaw, blemish) is given one reading near the fanqie shi mai and another near qi ji. If the character above is written as you, the fanqie for ci here must be read differently again. Lu Wenchao held that ci in this place should be read like yazi (the smallest imaginable grudge).

【5】Breadth versus Harshness

Commentary: When you receive outer things with breadth and forbearance, they will naturally come to you. If examination and scrutiny are pushed to an extreme of fineness and severity, a mind of stinginess and reckoning arises before you know it.

Exposition: Hounding and pressing too hard makes unworthy impulses answer in a flash—that is how disposition and events respond to each other, and how the pattern of things runs. Hence impatience loses the many; breadth wins them.

【6】Without Self-Knowledge, Fortune and Calamity Cannot Be Foreseen

Commentary: If you do not even notice it in yourself (that stinginess has already formed within), how can you know where blessing and disaster will land or turn?

Exposition: Impatience that goes against what is outside you meets pushback; that is shu (allotted outcome, fixed tendency) summoning itself, while the person does not see why. If at the time one meets it with buxiao (unworthy, unfit conduct), who can tell what harm will be drawn down afterward?

【7】Passing Orders Must Follow What Is Real

Commentary: What is passed on is that shi (the facts, the substantive order); it must not be swapped back and forth with every flash of pleasure or anger.

Exposition: Taking the ruler’s mandate, one transmits the genuine content and must not rewrite the command because the ruler is briefly pleased or angry.

【8】Let Completion Happen on Its Own

Commentary: Let the matter finish by itself; there is no need to force it.

Exposition: State the ruler’s order plainly and let the other side act according to the real situation; do not over-persuade, over-reward, or demand instant compliance.

【9】Extra Pushing Is No Longer “Trusting the Real”

Commentary: If “help” keeps adding yi (more pressure, more pushing), it is no longer the way of ren shi (trusting the real—transmitting only what is factual and letting things reach completion).

Exposition: Accepting what Heaven allots and going with what is already taking shape—only passing the real order without overstepping to pile on more—is what fits. If one adds force from mood or stubbornness, one strays from the original meaning of ren shi.

Commentary

State the ruler’s command plainly and let the other party act according to the actual situation. There is no need for extra urging or rewards, and still less for forcing the matter to be “made to succeed.”

Nine — Annotation

To embellish further or to step beyond one’s role is no longer to follow the real situation and let things be as they are.

Commentary

Rest in what Heaven allots and go along with one’s nature and the facts of the case. Do not interject or “help” too much. When words go too far or effort is excessive, one oversteps proper bounds and things turn out worse.

Ten — Annotation

This way of acting is precisely where affairs become dangerous.

Commentary

Therefore, to alter the ruler’s command on one’s own initiative, or to press the other side (or one’s own side) hard until the business is “done,” easily leads to great harm and peril in human relations and in the logic of the affair itself.

Eleven — Annotation

What truly “succeeds beautifully” must ripen with the times, like planting— it cannot mature in a single morning.

Commentary

What the heart already inclines toward and what already flows with the situation, if pursued along that grain, succeeds naturally without reliance on urging or reward, and can last.

(Note: The commentator holds that “the good” must steep in the Dao for a long time before it fully opens; a single day’s work is unreliable. “The bad” sometimes, once habit sets in, can no longer be changed in time. Good and bad differ in subtlety and show up as ease or difficulty—people as a rule seek the good and shun the bad, yet circumstances often fail to match, including cases that run counter to this, or where one grows used to wrongdoing and even feels at ease. This passage and the annotation seem slightly at odds in emphasis.)

Twelve — Annotation

When the other party inwardly loathes something, yet one still urges and forces it through, regret and failure follow quickly.

Commentary

What the heart already rejects—if one presses and forces it to completion—before long there will often be reversal and ruin.

Thirteen — Commentary

For one who moves among people on a mission bearing orders, these words left by the sages of old should especially be kept in mind and acted on with care.

Fourteen — Annotation

To lodge one’s intent in external things.

Commentary

One who moves alone with transformation and with the Dao, mingling in the crowd, roaming by way of external things, with a vacant, still heart accommodating the world—what danger could there be?

Commentary on [15]

Act in accord with whatever aspect of circumstances leaves you “with no alternative but to act thus,” and you fully align with the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean). That is also the most fitting stance for meeting people and handling affairs.

One gloss: “having no alternative” (budeyi) is precisely the necessity built into how principle (li) unfolds at each step. Settle body and mind in that necessity, and what is there to fear?

Another gloss, more expanded: “having no alternative” is likewise the necessity of principle. Let what must happen rest in that necessity; inwardly sustain zhonghe (equilibrium and harmony), neither leaning nor forcing—and you reach the utmost in discerning principle and the subtlety of responding to things: the most apt way of engaging the myriad beings.

Commentary on [16]

You should accept only the genuine recompense that belongs to Qi (or to what Qi rightfully receives). Why, before matters are settled, pre‑emptively scheme for Qi and manipulate intent in the gaps?

Gloss: It is enough to follow your allotted portion along with fate and act according to principle. There is no need to suspect, suppress, or calculate in advance, specially “arranging” later payback on Qi’s behalf.

Commentary on [17]

To be direct and entrust life and death to the principle of Heaven (tianli) is originally the easiest path. Once joy and anger enter the heart and emotions drive action, it becomes hard.

Gloss: To follow feeling straightforwardly and leave fate to Heaven is inherently simple—where is the real difficulty? When the text speaks of “difficulty,” it means: if you can avoid letting joy and anger govern affairs, it is not difficult after all.

Note: In these passages “Qi” usually refers to the Warring States state of Qi or to Qi in a specific context. Collation notes (e.g. Shide Hall edition, emendations such as changing po to another character) record variant readings in different editions; they are not part of the doctrinal main text, so they are omitted from this vernacular exposition.

Yan He (a recluse and worthy of Lu) was about to go to Wei to serve as tutor to the crown prince of Duke Ling of Wei. He sought advice beforehand from Qu Boyu (Qu Yuan, a worthy minister of Wei), saying: “There is a man whose nature is cruel and who delights in killing. If I indulge him without setting any standards, he will bring ruin to the state; if I try to restrain him with rules and norms, I will endanger myself. He is clever enough to spot others’ faults, yet cannot see where those faults come from. When I meet someone like this, what should I do?”

The commentary explains: the “crown prince” here is the Wei heir Kuai Kui, brutal by nature and quick to kill for pleasure. Yan He was traveling from Lu to Wei to become tutor to the heir apparent, hence his consultation with Qu Boyu. “Without standards” (wufang) means not imposing norms or not governing him by “method” (law and measure); “with standards” (youfang) means restraining him with ritual and law. Small-minded natures often work like this: lead them with law and they hate you; let them run without bounds and the realm falls into chaos. Kuai Kui could see others’ faults but not that his own lay in debauchery—hence Yan He’s worry about the twin dilemmas of “endangering the state” and “endangering himself.”

On “wufang” (no fixed method)

The commentary explains that fang here means Dao—the principles and standards by which one acts.

[Commentary]

The ruler does not see that the people’s faults stem from himself, so he blames the people instead of examining and correcting his own conduct.

[Exposition]

When the ruler is without the Way and does not reform, the people suffer and punishment runs deep; he only sees commoners condemned, not that the fault lies in himself. Once he knows that instruction is like wind bending grass, he should understand that responsibility rests with the ruler.

[Main sense of the original]

Qu Boyu said: “Well asked! Be vigilant and cautious, and set your own person right. Outwardly it is best to jiu (align and go along); inwardly it is best to be harmonious. Even so, these two approaches carry hidden dangers: in aligning, one must not sink in; in harmonizing, one must not show it outward. Outward alignment that sinks in leads to overturning, ruin, collapse, and fall; inner harmony that shows outward leads to making a name, making a reputation, making omens, and making calamity. If he is like an infant, you too be like an infant with him; if he is without borders (wu dingqi), you too be without borders with him; if he is without cliff or limit (wu ya), you too be without limit with him. Penetrating this, one can enter a state without blemish.”

[Commentary · “Set the female/right person right”]

Meeting again and again is all for the sake of setting one’s own person right.

[Exposition · “Vigilance and caution”]

“Vigilance” means to exhort oneself. One must not be careless with oneself; guard and treat the heir with caution and do not lightly give offense; personally tread the correct path and follow what the occasion requires. First he praises the question as well put, then he gives the method.

[Commentary · “Outward form and harmony”]

Outward form does not violate (ritual and propriety); inwardly one is harmonious without blending into him (and losing proper measure).

[Exposition]

The bodily form aligns and does not violate the rites of ruler and minister; the mind is harmonious—outwardly one appears to blend in while affairs still get done.

[Commentary · “These two have hidden dangers”]

Both “aligning” (jiu) and “harmonizing” (he) carry hidden dangers.

[Commentary · “In aligning, do not wish to enter”]

Outward alignment must not “sink in.”

[Commentary · “In harmonizing, do not wish to come out”]

Inner harmony must not “show outward.”

[Commentary · “Outward form aligns and enters”]

Outward alignment that sinks in leads to overturning, ruin, collapse, and fall.

[Commentary · “Heart harmonizes and comes out”]

Inner harmony that shows outward leads to making a name, making a reputation, making omens, and making calamity.

[Exposition · “Penetrating it”]

“Thus” means “like this.” “What then shall we do?”—so he turns to Qu Yuan (Qu Boyu) for instruction, and therefore sets out these principles.

Section 3 — Commentary text

The first two points only sketch a rough way to get by in the world. Even if you carry them out very thoroughly, you still cannot escape entanglement and lingering trouble.

Section 4 — Commentary

“Join” (jiu) means to follow along outwardly in form; “enter” (ru) means the heart goes along too and becomes one with the other side.

Section 4 — Sub-commentary

Guo Xiang’s note says: jiu is conforming in outward form; ru is becoming the same as the other. Even when done very well, there is still the burden of trouble.

Section 5 — Commentary

“Harmonize” (he) means using principle to complete and rescue the other person; “come out” (chu) means displaying yourself and “felling goodness”—boasting and putting others down.

Section 5 — Sub-commentary

When the inner mind is harmonious and you use skillful means to guide others, attributing merit to the ruler and not showing your own ability—that is “not coming out.”

Section 6 — Commentary

If you only follow and enter together, it is like failing to support what is tottering in crisis and perishing together with the other side. Therefore one should take heaven and earth’s great pattern as model, only without setting up petty distinctions and petty factions.

Section 6 — Sub-commentary

Dian is overturning and sinking; mie is cutting off; beng and jue are collapse and ruin. If you only follow in outward appearance and enter together into the other’s evil, that is not supporting what is tottering—then overturning, cutting off, collapse, and failure follow, and you perish together with the other.

Section 7 — Commentary

If you display your “harmony” yourself, you incur the reputation of “bearing filth” (han gou—enduring stain); if you seek the name of “benefiting the other” on their turf, they will hate you for surpassing them and wrongly spawn strange trouble. So one should be dim and obscure like twilight, mystically one with light and dust; only then can one speak of being neither close nor distant, neither benefited nor harmed.

(Textual notes: jue read qí yuè fǎn in Xu; Guo jué; Li jǔ wèi fǎn; for mō in mō gé read mò hú fǎn; Lu Wenchao: modern texts write mó with the wood radical for mō.)

Commentary. When things are pushed out of their natural course, they turn into “anomalies.” “Calamities” (nie) are disasters and harm. A person may outwardly blend with others and hide their light, yet if they still display their cleverness and cannot truly sheathe their edge, they acquire the reputation of wanting to help others while in fact outdoing them. Kuai Gua resented being surpassed by him and charged that he had recklessly invented omens of calamity; he then seized on that pretext to injure him.

A commentator in the Zhuangzi tradition explains: Harmony (he) at first is like the five flavors working together—sweet and pungent combined until they form one whole and you can no longer tell which is which. If one flavor is singled out and shown off on its own, it is no longer harmony. One adjusts to the other’s joy and anger, urgency and slackness, and softens their scheming heart without joining them in a game of meeting and blocking. Where there is meeting and blocking, there is advance and retreat; the point of harmony is not to “go out”—that is, not to engage in meeting and blocking at all.

The glossarial note gives fanqie readings: for nie (calamity), yàn-liè; for jiang e (about to hate), wū-lù; for menran (sullen/dull), mén.

Note. Do not stand your ground on petty points or strike what the other treats as an untouchable sore (their “reverse scale”).

Commentary. “Ting” means a field margin or boundary; “qi” means a ridge or dividing line in the fields. “Yu” means being with someone; “ru” means joining and merging. Dealing with people in the world is genuinely difficult: one cannot simply go along with everything and melt entirely into the crowd, nor can one at once take a stand and clash with them.

Sometimes one is like an infant—seemingly dull and coarse, with no hidden agenda; sometimes like open country with no field ridges and no lines at all. There may be extravagant desire or unchecked violence and killing—Zhuangzi is not recommending these, but describing how mixed and extreme the world can be. Only then does one lead with virtue (de) and align people with ritual (li). Whoever can see through this situation and hold the right measure will truly grasp the way of being “without burdens” (wulei).

Glossarial note on the text. “Like an infant”: Li Yi says it stands for having no deliberate intent; Cui says it stands for carefree wandering. “Without ting [and] qi”: ting is read tǐng-dǐng. Li says ting and qi mean boundaries and field ridges; “without boundaries and ridges” means having no imposing manner or fixed rules. Cui says it stands for strict integrity. “Without ya (cliff/limit)”: Sima says it means not heeding legal bounds. “Without ci (flaw)” is read sì-yí and means fault or defect.

Textual collation: Wording varies slightly among editions. Some omit the particle ye; ye and the second ye are deleted following the Zhao Jianyi edition and the Shide Tang edition; mo is emended to mo per the Shide Tang edition and Lu’s collation.

Have you not heard of the mantis? In fury it raises its forelegs to block the cart wheel, unaware that it cannot bear that burden—because it takes its one small skill to be splendid and grand. Be wary; be cautious! Hoarding talent in the heart and everywhere flaunting one’s strengths to offend the powerful is not far from danger.

Note: The mantis lifting its arms is not lacking in fierceness, but against the rut of a wheel its strength is still insufficient. To know clearly that one’s force is inadequate yet press forward anyway is the same as a mantis blocking a cart.

Commentary: The mantis is an insect with axe-shaped forelegs. It gathers strength and uses its arms to block the wheel rut; though it trusts in its fine skill, it certainly cannot meet the task. This likens Yan He—who in tradition sought Qu Boyu’s counsel before going to instruct the crown prince—to one who, relying on personal talent alone, resists the heir’s power; it is no different from a mantis stopping a cart.

Phonology and meaning: Sheng in “cannot bear” (busheng) is read in the level tone. Elsewhere Sima Biao is cited: it is not that the skill is not fine, but that one truly cannot meet the charge.

Note: To store up your talent, display your excellence, and provoke that person is the road to peril.

Commentary: “Store” (ji) means to accumulate; “er” refers to you; “ji” (in ji wei) means danger. Since one is assisting the crown prince, one ought to be vigilant; if one accumulates ability, prides oneself on one’s excellence, and clashes with august power, one will invite ruin.

Do you know how people who raise tigers go about it? They dare not feed them with live prey, for fear the tiger, stirred by the act of pouncing and killing, will awaken its killing mind and turn its rage on the keeper. They dare not toss it a whole carcass either, for fear that as it tears and divides the meat with great exertion, it will grow angry from the strain. One must grasp the hours of its hunger and satiety and read the reasons for its joy and anger. Tiger and human belong to different kinds, yet the tiger will draw near to the one who feeds it—because that person goes along with its nature; when it injures someone, it is usually because a person has gone against its nature.

The commentary says: what is feared is that the tiger, through killing, will give rise to anger in the heart. Cheng Xuanying’s subcommentary says: Do you understand the way of raising tigers in the world? Creatures like pigs and sheep must not be thrown to the beast alive and whole, lest once it kills, wrath rises in it. The “household Shifu” (Cheng Xuanying) also says: This is similar to the line about being “almost there”—glaring angrily at the mantis is already close to courting danger; it is overestimating one’s strength. Though the tiger can grow angry, it can be trained; though the horse may be fine, if the bit is lacking and it shatters head and breast in rage, there is no difference—simply do not provoke it. What can the mantis achieve by brushing against the cart rut?

On the second note: if the tiger is allowed to tear and bite the meat apart itself, it will grow angry from the exertion.

On the third note: know why it grows angry and go along with that. The subcommentary says: knowing the times of hunger and fullness, penetrating the measure of joy and anger, understanding the nature of things—then one will not bring calamity upon oneself.

On the fourth note: when principle is followed, even different kinds will draw close; when the proper measure is violated, even the closest kin will contend with one another.

Section 1 (Commentary)

When you go along with someone’s temperament, even tigers and wolves can be tamed and brought close; when you push back, even those closest to you may come to blows. The ways of winning another’s favor are essentially the same, and the measure for dealing with people is no different.

(Cheng Xuanying also cites a family elder: you must grasp what someone truly wants when anger rises before you can respond. What is called shun (going along) is not simply indulging every desire. When killing is called for, you do not block it by force, yet you also do not steer him toward rage; when release is called for, you do not dam it up by force, yet you also do not push him toward rage. So long as you do not provoke his anger and leave room in his mind for a way out, that is shun.)

The “Love the Horse” Parable

Someone who loves his horse fills bamboo baskets with the horse’s dung and great clam shells with its urine—already the utmost care. If swarms of gadflies then cluster and bite the horse, and he swats them a moment too late or a touch too hard, the horse may break the bit, shatter its head, and crush its chest.

When care reaches an extreme, the very thing “love” was meant to preserve is lost—can one fail to be cautious?

Notes on Key Terms

• Shi niao (dung and urine): commentary notes that dung and urine are the basest things, yet precious vessels are used to hold them—ai ma (loving the horse) taken past the mark.
• Meng pu yuan (gadflies swarm and cling): gadflies gather in crowds on the horse’s body.
• Fu zhi bu shi (swatting at the wrong time): striking the insects at the wrong moment or with the wrong force.
• Que xian hui shou sui xiong (breaking the bit, ruining the head, smashing the chest): a image for how improper intervention in the name of “love” invites great disaster.

On pronunciation and textual variants (commentary)

Entries such as “pu yuan” are about pronunciation and textual collation: in some editions “pu” is read like “fu,” meaning that gadflies attach to the horse; older views by Xiang Xiu, Cui Zuan, and others differ. Wang Niansun held that “pu” is the same as “fu”—near in sound and alike in meaning—and cited Classic of Poetry, “Already Drunk,” Master of Illusions (Zi Xu Fu), and similar passages to support the sense of “clinging” or “attaching.” “Qun zhuo” gives the reading of “zhuo” in “swarming attachment.”

[Three] Annotation

The original intent was to rid the horse of pests, yet the act was a sudden strike when the horse was wholly off guard (“covering the horse’s lack of expectation”).

[Four] Annotation

Because the blow came unawares, the horse panicked and only then bolted to such an extreme.

[Commentary] (main thread of the passage)

Here “pu” can be taken as gathering, clinging; “tuo” is to strike or slap; “xian” is the bit in the mouth, “le” the reins. Gadflies happened to swarm on the horse’s body; the owner cherished the horse and struck suddenly, intending to remove the flies. Because the moment was not chosen, acting when the horse did not anticipate it, the horse was startled at once, so the bit came loose and the reins failed—what follows about torn bridle, trampled handlers, shattered head and chest shows that removing a small nuisance by rashly startling the horse instead brings great harm.

[Five] Annotation (main point of the doctrine)

Set on eliminating harm, one strikes rashly, until bridle breaks and people are hurt—and thus the original meaning of “loving the horse” is lost. So in how people deal with one another in the present age, amid compliance and resistance, urgency and slack, one cannot be incautious—the same message as the original Zhuangzi parable (loving the horse and removing gadflies yet harming the horse): good intent, at the wrong time and in the wrong manner, turns into greater harm.

Commentary

“Wang” means loss. What the mind fixes upon is that beloved horse; once the horse is harmed, what one loved is gone. People’s dealings with things in the world work the same way—a slight slip in cleverness and responsiveness, and trouble follows. The image of striking the horse is one that truly calls for deep caution.

A commentator in the tradition of household exegesis says: when people meet and mingle, the world takes shape; then beauty and ugliness appear, compliance and resistance split apart, and what counts as going with or against the flow shows itself. When things stand like that, great harm comes along—the text is saying that people, taken as a group, are not enough to live well together; yet who knows that the shortfall may be in oneself, not in others? Only by settling oneself in “uselessness” does one really get a hold on things. Virtue is churned up by reputation; wisdom is born from rivalry—that is the thread running through the whole chapter. The five passages at the end: drop name and contention, and only then can one move freely among others.

Textual notes

“Shuairan”: given by fanqie spelling. Some manuscripts read “zu” instead, with fanqie “qi hu.”

Emendation

The word rendered as “arrive” (zhi) is corrected to match the received text and Guo Xiang’s commentary (where the manuscript had perhaps “zai” [at/in]).

Master Carpenter Shi was on his way to the state of Qi. When he reached Quyuan, he saw a camphor tree marked as a village spirit-tree. It was large enough to shade thousands of oxen; measured with a rope, its girth was a full hundred arm-spans. Its crown rose toward the hills; one had to climb ten ren before there were branches, and there were about ten lateral limbs stout enough to serve as boat timbers. A crowd of onlookers gathered thick as at a fair, but the master carpenter did not so much as glance at it and walked on without breaking stride.

[1] Commentary (meaning)

Zhi means to go toward or to pass along the way. Quyuan is a place name: a road that bends and turns, comparable to routes such as the Zhuanxuan Pass west of Mount Song. Li is the name of a tree. She is the earth god; piling earth to set up a shrine is called a she (“she” carries the sense of “bringing forth the ten thousand things,” hence the name). Jiang is the general term for a skilled worker; Shi is this craftsman’s personal name. He travels from the state of Lu toward the state of Qi and, on the way, passes Quyuan and sees an extraordinary tree: the trunk is swollen and not suitable for timber. This passage is meant to show that as one moves through the world, one sometimes must treat “uselessness” as a way to be “useful” in life.

Textual notes (pronunciation, meaning, collation)

In Quyuan, “yuan” is read with the yuan sound. Sima Biao says Quyuan means a winding road. Cui Zuan says Quyuan is a road name. Li (tree): li di fan (reverse cut). Li Yi says: a tree name; some identify it with qiu. Lu Wenchao notes: in various editions “qiu” was wrongly written as “cai”; the text follows the Song edition.

[2] Commentary (meaning)

Jie means to bind or to measure girth. This Oak at the She Altar is far taller than ordinary trees; its branches and leaves cast shade large enough to shelter several oxen at once. Measuring the trunk with a rope, the girth is about a hundred wei (one wei is roughly one chi in diameter, so about ten zhang). Many Zhuangzi manuscripts circulated in the Jiangnan region read “large enough to shelter oxen” and lack the word “several thousand”; the wording here may be corrupt. Moreover, the tree at Shangqiu was already on the scale of “a thousand chariots tied abreast”; if the Quyuan tree sheltered only one ox, the scale would not match, so the reading with “several thousand (oxen)” is more plausible.

Textual notes

For bi niu (“shelter oxen”), “bi” is bi shi fan. Li Yi: oxen beside the tree seem blocked from view. For bai wei (“hundred wei”), Li Yi: one chi of diameter counts as one wei; a hundred wei is about ten zhang.

Brief background

This passage comes from the Craftsman Stone and Oak at the She Altar episode in the “In the World Among People” chapter of the Zhuangzi: the great tree escapes the axe because it is “not timber,” in the same vein as the later theme of the usefulness of uselessness. The commentary explains word meanings, place names, and variant readings, and states the parable’s point.

On “ten ren”

The Xiao Erya says one ren equals four chi. Some say one ren is seven or eight chi; Cui’s edition reads “a thousand ren” instead.

On the great tree

The tree stands straight and towers upward, reaching more than seventy ren before it puts out branches, shading the sky and rising to the clouds. Trees big enough to serve as boats—there are about ten such trees nearby. That is roughly the picture.

On “pang shi shu” and fang

Yu Yue held that pang should be read as fang, since the two characters often interchange in old texts (as with pang and fang in the Shangshu, Xinxu, Lunheng, and elsewhere; in Zhuangzi, “Youyu” chapter, “going in and out without pang” means “without fang”—without fixed direction). Here, “those that can serve as boats, fang about ten in number,” means: trees usable as boats number roughly ten. The Shiwen cites Cui as taking pang to mean side branches because he did not recognize pang as a stand-in for fang, and so treated a function word as if it carried full lexical sense.

On the “bu chuo” passage (commentary)

Chuo means to stop. The tree is so unusually large that many people come to look. Only the master carpenter Shi (Shi the carpenter) understood that it was useless timber; he walked straight past on the road without even glancing at it.

Supplement to the Shiwen

“Guan zhe” (onlookers): pronunciation as in the notes. “Jiang bo”: i.e., master carpenter Shi—Shi is his personal name, Bo his style; Cui’s text also has Shi. Sima Biao and others cite texts giving the carpenter’s style as Bo. “Bu chuo”: pronunciation as in the notes.

About textual criticism (optional reading)

Some editions omit the phrase for “several thousand”; commentators disagree on how to read bu chuo; other variant readings exist—these are standard notes from editing old texts and do not change the main meaning of the passage.

The disciple, struck by how extraordinary the great oak (the community shrine tree) looked, stood gazing and then ran after the carpenter (named Bo). “Since I started carrying the axe and working with you,” he said, “I’ve never seen timber this fine. Why wouldn’t you even look at it and walked on without turning back?”

The carpenter said, “Enough—don’t go on. This is san mu—loose, useless wood. Make a boat from it and it sinks; a coffin and it rots fast; vessels and they break soon; doors and windows and sap and foul drips come out; pillars and worms eat them. Such bu cai zhi mu—wood good for nothing—lasts this long precisely because it is no good for anything.”

[2]

Oak wood is heavy; if made into a boat it sinks easily. Close to soil it rots quickly, and even as coffin boards it soon fails. Such loose, useless timber can nevertheless live out a full span of years—precisely because it is bucai wood (wood of no use), it can remain at leisure, unexploited and left alone.

[3]

Among human artifacts, what matters most is sturdiness and durability. Oak is loose and brittle; early decay is only to be expected.

[4]

“Man” refers to resin or sap seeping from within the wood; “du” refers to borers in the heart of the timber. Use it for doors and windows and the sap oozes outward; use it for pillars and beams and it both hosts worms and lacks strength. (Per traditional commentary, “man” is often linked with descriptions of pine heart exuding resin, picturing the way grease or sap leaks out.)

[5]

(Note) This kind of tree is not on the roll of “serviceable timber,” hence the name san mu (scattered, worthless wood).

(Commentary) It is idle, loose, and good for nothing—whatever task you assign, it will not hold up. Because it has no use, it escapes being felled and dying young.

After Carpenter Shi returned home, the spirit of the camphor tree appeared to him in a dream and said: “What do you intend to compare me with? Do you mean to compare me with those trees that count as ‘useful timber’? Trees like shatian, pear, orange, and pomelo—when their fruit ripens, people strip and pick it; in being picked they are shamed. Large branches are broken off, small ones are torn away. Precisely because they can serve human use and are made to distort their own growth, they never live out their natural span; they die halfway, as if cut short by the world with its own hands. Most things in the world are like this. Moreover, I have long sought to be ‘utterly useless’—I almost lost my life; only now have I finally attained it. For me, that is the great use. If I too had been useful, could I have grown this large? Besides, you and I are both things among things—why should thing judge thing, thing measure thing? You, a ‘scatter-man who almost lost his life’—what do you understand of ‘scatterwood’?”

(“Ornamental timber” [wenmu] means wood fit for vessels and other patterned, practical uses; “scatterwood” [sanmu] means timber that fails the standard of use—in this story, that failure is precisely the way of preservation.)

[5]

Commentary: Accumulating “uselessness” is precisely the great usefulness of preserving life.

Exegesis: When wood is not timber-grade and has no practical use, it can instead live out its life whole. The oak that became the altar tree of the earth god had long understood this principle. Mediocre, clumsy craftsmen suspected it was fine timber fit for tools and came again and again to look it over, intending to cut it down; the tree feared the axe and saw and came close to ruin. Now it meets Craftsman Shi, who sees that it is “useless wood,” and only then can it preserve its life—for the tree, that is the great use. “Almost” (ji) here means “to approach” or “to come near.”

[6]

Commentary: If it were useful, it would long ago have been felled.

Exegesis: If it were truly fine timber with usable worth, it would surely have been cut and would have died early under axe and saw—how could it have grown so tall and enjoyed its full span of years?

[7]

Exegesis: You and I are both beings within the work of creation—how can one kind of thing truly know another! “Naihe zai” is rhetorical, a tone of question and lament.

[8]

Commentary: Teasing Craftsman Shi in a dream.

Exegesis: Craftsman Shi treats “uselessness” as the mark of a “free wanderer” (sanren)—someone who roams outside conventional worth; the altar oak, conversely, calls “having talent and ability” “useless,” and therefore calls Craftsman Shi a free wanderer. To display talent and ability in the mundane world is to approach early death; because I am scattered and useless, I attain wholeness of life. You are a free wanderer who nears the end of your days—how would you know that I am “useless wood”? This passage is framed as a dream, to mock Craftsman Shi.

The Shiwen (pronunciation notes) mostly give fanqie spellings and readings (for example, how to read “ji si” as qi or ji, etc.); for reading in plain language they can be skipped.

This passage is about Carpenter Shi, after waking from sleep, discussing with his disciple the story of the great Chinese parasol tree in his dream.

The disciple asks: If the point is that one should “seek to be useless” in order to preserve oneself, why did that tree still serve as the shrine tree—the big tree the village relies on when worshipping the local earth god? Isn’t that a bit contradictory?

On the character read as zhen: Some commentators take “upon waking, zhen his dream” to mean that he divined the dream after waking. But Wang Niansun argued that the word should be read as zheng, meaning “to tell” or “to report.” The whole section is Carpenter Shi recounting to his disciple his conversation with the oak in the dream; there is no dream-divination episode here. So the line should read: after waking, Carpenter Shi told his disciple what had happened in the dream.

What the commentary (zhu) means: The disciple still feels that serving as the shrine tree is “taking glory from the shrine role”—as if it were not simply “contentedly staying useless.”

How the sub-commentary (shu) expands it: The oak’s intention is to preserve life by “using uselessness as its use.” So why also become the shrine tree and chase that kind of honor? The disciple has not grasped this, which is why he asks.

Carpenter Shi says: “Hush! Say no more! The earth-god of the shrine merely lodges there by happenstance; it is not that the tree itself strove to become the shrine tree.”

He goes on: Because it is the shrine tree, those who “do not understand it” revile it and treat it as a burden; if it were not the shrine tree, it would long ago have been cut down. The way it preserves itself is unlike ordinary people’s; yet you judge it with the standards of “useful, useless, deserving praise”—that misses its point by a wide margin.

Main points line by line:

• “Mi! Ruo wu yan!” (“Secret! Do not speak!”) — The matter is subtle; do not argue over it with everyday logic.
• “Bi yi zhi ji yan” (“That one merely lodges there by happenstance”) — The shrine deity’s attachment to the tree is an external lodging, not the tree actively seeking fame.
• “Yi wei bu zhi ji zhe gou li” (“Thus those who do not know it revile and abuse it”) — In the eyes of those who do not understand, being the shrine tree actually draws scolding and trouble.
• “Bu wei she zhe, qie ji you jian hu” (“If it were not the shrine tree, it would soon have been trimmed/cut”) — Had it not been the shrine tree, the axe would likely have taken it already; serving as the shrine is a last-resort way to survive, not an honor.
• “Bi qi suo bao yu zhong yi, er yi yi (yu) yu zhi, bu yi yuan hu” (“What it preserves differs from the crowd’s, yet you liken it to praise and blame—is that not far off?”) — Its path of self-preservation is quite special; to speak of it in the worldly language of “deserving praise or blame” is to go astray.

Commentary elucidation (Cheng Xuanying and similar line-by-line explanations)

“Gou” means shame or reproach. The spirit-tree of the community altar thinks: it does not understand that I preserve my life through “uselessness,” yet it insists on treating shelter in me as glory; I instead feel that is being pointed at and shamed—how can that count as honor?

Gloss exegesis (Lu Deming’s Yinyi and the like)

“Gou”: Li reads it like hu dou fan; Xu reads it as gou (stain/shame). “Li”: read as in the text; Sima Biao says: gou is disgrace, li is illness or harm.

Annotation (Guo Xiang)

If one originally takes “uselessness” as “usefulness,” then even without serving as the community spirit-tree, one would still not come near the harm of being felled.

Commentary

It originally preserved its life because being loose-grained and not timber-worthy; even if it did not serve as the spirit-tree, how would it come near the harm of being cut down?

Gloss

“Qie ji”: read ji, or read qi. “Jian hu”: zi qian fan. Cui’s text has “qian yu” instead of “jian.”

Qing Fan notes: hu, Cui’s text has yu; yu is hu. As in Lunyu, “Zheng” chapter, “xiao hu wei xiao”—Huang Kan’s text and the Han stone classic both have yu; Lüshi chunqiu, “Shen ying” chapter, “ran ze xian wang sheng yu”—Gao’s note “yu, hu ye”—all this usage. “Bu jin”: jin is jin in the sense of nearness, same below.

Annotation (Guo Xiang)

It treats “not deliberately seeking preservation” as true preservation, while the crowd treats “having talent and utility” as preservation.

Commentary

A tree loose-grained and not timber-worthy preserves life through “uselessness”; beautiful, useful timber often dies young because of its talent—that is where the two views of “preservation” differ.

Annotation / Commentary

(Here the fourth annotation and commentary repeat: useful trees break easily, useless trees long endure—contrasting the two notions of “preservation.”)

Section Five — Annotation

The original meaning of she (the earth god and its altar) is to benefit people and nurture things, and to restrain the common people from wrongdoing. What is meant by “uselessness” is resting in ease without forced effort, so that each capacity unfolds in its own way; those who unfold find their proper place, yet that has nothing to do with “uselessness” as such—that is how “uselessness” can preserve life. Yet you praise the tree with the logic of the earth god—is that not even further from the point?

Commentary

Wood with scattered grain is not made into timber; that is what creation assigns. Precisely because it is useless, life can be preserved. When the earth god is lodged in a tree, the result is shame instead; to praise it with the meaning of she is to miss the mark by an even wider margin.

(Textual notes on pronunciation, meaning, and collation omitted.)

The adept Nan Bo Ziqi traveled to Shang’s Hill (the region around Shangqiu) and saw an extraordinary tree: a column of a thousand war chariots could assemble beneath it and find shade and rest.

Ziqi said, “What kind of tree is this? It must have some exceptional usefulness!”

He looked up at the fine branches—they twisted and turned and could not serve as beams or rafters. He looked down at the trunk—the grain was split and loose and could not serve for coffins. He tasted a leaf and his mouth would ulcerate and hurt. He smelled it and it made one drunk and disoriented for three days without sobering.

Note: Nan Bo Ziqi is a figure of enlightenment in Zhuangzi’s writings. “A column of a thousand war chariars” describes how vast the shade is. “Shelter and rely beneath it” (bi qi suo ai) means to take cover and rest under the tree. “Split grain” (zhou jie) refers to wood whose fibers run crosswise, unfit for heavy use. The whole passage uses the image of a great tree that seems useless yet preserves life precisely because it is useless, echoing the earlier discussion of the “altar tree” that is praised and thereby shamed.

【Commentary】

“Bo” means an elder or leader. Nan Guo Ziqi’s learning and standing were high enough to serve as the “elder” of the myriad things, so he is called “Bo”—that is, Nan Guo Ziqi himself. Shangqiu is a place name in the Liang and Song region. In antiquity, four horses to one carriage counted as one “sheng” (chariot team). Here “dai” means to shade or shelter. Ziqi traveled within the state of Song until he neared Shangqiu and saw an extraordinary tree: the trunk was thick and tall, the branches and leaves luxuriant, and it cast a broad canopy. The area it could shade was very large—enough that if a whole row of chariots and horses were parked in one spot, it could still shelter a space comparable to four thousand horses (or four thousand chariot teams).

【Textual notes】

Nan Bo: Li Yi says “Nan Bo” is Nan Guo (Ziqi); “bo” means “elder.” Shang zhi qiu: Sima Biao says this is the area of today’s Suiyang county in Liang. Qian sheng: read with the ancient pronunciation “sheng zheng fan.” Yin: Cui Yan says it means “injured by heat.” Jiang bi: the original text also writes “bi” (to shelter). Suo dai: pronounced “lai”; Cui’s text has “lai”; Xiang Xiu says “shade,” meaning it can shade or shelter a thousand chariot teams; Li Yi agrees. Suo yin: pronounced “yu zhen fan.”

【2】【Commentary】

When Ziqi saw this great tree, he could not name it and thought it must have some special capacity that allowed it to grow so enormous.

【3】【Commentary】

“Zhou jie” refers to grain in the heartwood that spirals like a turning axle hub. The whole tree can be used for coffins—“guan” means “complete,” and an outer case is called “guo.” Timbers for beams and ridgepoles must be straight; twisted wood is unsuitable. Coffins and outer cases must be solid; if the grain is loose and prone to splitting, they are not strong enough.

Phonetics and textual variants (explanatory notes)

Entries such as “yicai fu” (yì cái fū) mark how words are read. For “yang er” (yǎng ér), one reading is “cong er” (cóng ér), following Xiang Xiu’s and Cui’s texts. “Ze quan” (zé quán) is also written as “juan” (juǎn), read like “quan” (quán). “Zhou” (zhóu) is glossed with a fanqie close to “zhi zhu” (zhí zhú). On “jie” (jiě), Li Yi says it means to loosen straight like a rolled garment or scroll.

Guo Xiang’s commentary (section four)

If you lick those leaves with your tongue, lips and mouth will ulcerate; if you sniff them with your nose, you grow dizzy and cannot sober up. “Cheng” (chéng) is the state of illness from wine—hangover not yet cleared (“kuang cheng” (kuáng chéng): Li Yi says the frenzy is like drunken chéng; in older usage “bing jiu” (bìng jiǔ), sickness from wine, was called chéng).

(Textual note: older editions wrongly had “Cui yun” (Cuī yún); that should be corrected; “shi” (shì) follows the Shide Tang and related recensions—version editing that does not change the main sense.)

Scripture (Ziqi’s words)

Ziqi said: This tree is precisely because it is wood of “no use as timber” (bù chéng cái) that it could grow so vast. Alas—the so-called spirit person (shen ren) also relies on this same “no-timber” (bù cái)!

Cheng Xuanying’s commentary

The whole tree had not a single part fit to be made into tools, yet for that very reason it preserved its life and became truly great timber; the world only calls it “useless,” but that is exactly the hidden benefit that saves the myriad things—so it escapes axe and adze and can shade the chariots of a state of a thousand teams.

Guo Xiang’s note

The ruler need not be “talented” (chéng cái) in every task of the hundred offices; each office does its part: the clear-eyed look, the sharp-eared listen, the wise plan, the brave defend—what does the ruler do? Only abide in dark stillness (xu mo). Then each kind of capacity stays in its place, which shows that “not being timber” (bù chéng cái) is the root on which all talents depend; the realm gladly supports him without weariness, and he can ride among the myriad things without harming them.

Commentary One

The perfected person (zhi ren, one who has attained the utmost in spirit) has already approached the divine; even the transformations of yin and yang cannot fathom him. What more is there to do? Only to remain silent, profound, and remote. Yet the myriad things of the world each keep their place and obtain what is theirs; those that seem “unfit for use” are precisely what those who are “fit for use” ultimately depend on. Therefore the people of the world gladly uphold him without weariness; he follows along with the myriad things, and does not harm them.

Commentary Two

The perfected person is numinous; yin and yang transformations cannot be measured against him; he blends with the human world, sharing its light and dust without showing an edge. Thus he can root deeply and stand firm, long enduring and long observing, carrying the myriad things like a boat and sheltering the people like shade. Like the sacred catalpa of the community altar—unlike ordinary “useful” timber—so one may marvel at the use of the spirit person (shen ren): seeming unfit for use, he is in truth great timber.

Textual Notes on Pronunciation

In “wei zhi,” “wei” is read as “wei” (wèi, “to act artificially”). The same applies to “wei zhi” below.

Textual Collation

(1) In Zhao Jianyi’s edition, “cheng” appears as “chen.”

Main Text

In the state of Song there was a place associated with the Jing clan, where catalpa, cypress, and mulberry grew well. Trees with trunks a full arm-span around or more were cut down by people who sought them to make posts for tethering macaques used in monkey training; those three or four arm-spans around were cut down by people chasing a lofty name who wanted them for splendid beams and rafters; those seven or eight arm-spans around were cut down by people from powerful, wealthy households who wanted them for side boards of coffins. Thus these trees had not yet lived out the years nature allotted them when they were killed mid-course by axe and adze—this is the disaster of being “timber fit for use.”

Therefore at the rite of expiation (jie ji, offering victims to remove misfortune), oxen with white foreheads, pigs with turned-up snouts, and people afflicted with hemorrhoids were all deemed unsuitable to go to the riverbank for the calamity-averting ceremony. The shaman-officiants (wu zhu, those who preside over sacrifice and divination) all knew this and treated them as ill omens. Yet in Zhuangzi’s view, the reason the spirit person (shen ren, one united with the Dao who does not flaunt his talents) is greatly auspicious is precisely that he can avoid the fate of “useful and therefore cut short in life”—in contrast with useful timber and inauspicious sacrificial beasts.

Commentary on the Three Types of Wood: All three are straight, fine timber fit for use. This briefly illustrates why “useful timber dies young,” in contrast to the earlier point that scattered, useless trees survive because they are useless.

Jing Clan and the Suitable Autumn Cypress and Mulberry: Jing is a place or neighborhood name; there the three types of fine timber grow well (Cui’s reading). Note: in some editions “qiu” (autumn) is written as “qiu” (Chinese catalpa).

Section Two

Commentary: Two hands together make a “gong” (circumference); one hand makes a “ba” (grip). Ju is the macaque. Yi is a stake or pole. A small tree as thick as a gong or a ba is just enough to cut for stakes and poles to tether macaques.

Glossary: Gong, ba, ju (macaque), hou (monkey), yi (stake/pole)—same sounds and meanings as before; Guo’s note says they are meant for macaques to perch and play on.

Section Three

Commentary: Li refers to a roof beam, also to a small boat. Gaoming means glory and prominence. Trees three or four “wei” around (circumference)—somewhat larger—are taken by those who want tall buildings, fine boats, and a famous name.

Glossary: San wei (Cui: one wei = eight chi around the trunk), zhi li (Sima: small boat or house beam). Qingfan’s note: those who seek tall “li” use trees of three or four wei (the idea of “called great” appears under “three hundred famous mountains” in the “Under Heaven” chapter).

Section Four

Commentary: Trees of seven or eight wei can serve as spirit tablets in ancestral temples and as spirit lords on community altars; those who seek glory dare not take them lightly.

Glossary: Qi wei ba wei, zhi ling (spirit tablet), she (Sima: altar lord / community spirit).

Section Five

Commentary: People chase usefulness, so useful timber does not live long; Heaven and Earth’s intent is to treat the useless as useful—therefore it can endure.

Glossary: You yong (useful), wu yong (useless).

Section Six

Commentary: Carpenter Shi saw the sacred oak at the community altar—so large it shaded an ox, a hundred chi across. Carpenter Shi did not look back. His apprentice asked; he answered: a useless tree.

Glossary: Jiang Shi (Carpenter Stone), li (Chinese oak), she (altar), bi (shade/cover), guang (breadth).

Section Seven

Commentary: After waking, Carpenter Shi dreamed. The sacred oak said: What do you compare me to as “useless”? Useful timber dies young; I have long sought uselessness and barely escaped the axe.

Glossary: Bi (compare), you yong, wu yong, jin (axe).

Section Eight

Commentary: The altar tree also said: I am not your kind—what use is your talk of usefulness? Besides, you are near death; to you I am inauspicious.

Glossary: Xiang (Li Yun: inauspicious).

Section Nine

Commentary: Carpenter Shi woke and recorded it. The disciple said: Carpenter Shi is skilled, the altar oak is numinous—yet even they do not fully know; how much less ordinary people?

Glossary: No special terms.

Section Ten

Commentary: The altar tree preserves itself through uselessness—not because Carpenter Shi fails to recognize it.

Glossary: None.

Main Point: Gong/ba thickness → stakes for macaques; three or four wei → beams, boats, and fame; seven or eight wei → altar spirit lords. People take what is useful, so it dies young; Heaven and Earth take uselessness as wholeness. Carpenter Shi passes by the altar oak; in a dream the oak argues that long uselessness means wholeness and usefulness means early death—the same logic as scattered wood and fine timber.

[4] (Commentary) “Fan an” means “large.” The point is this: when one wishes to make tall, splendid vessels, one uses enormous trees whose girth reaches three or four arm-spans.

(The idea of “greatness as reputation” appears in the “Three hundred famous mountains” passage of the “Tianxia” chapter.)

[4] (Sub-commentary) “Chan pang” denotes a coffin. It is also said: coffin planks cut from a single full edge of timber—not boards joined from two sides—are likewise called chan pang. Wood of seven or eight arm-spans’ girth is exceptionally large; in the homes of the rich and of merchants, who want oversized coffin boards, such trees are often felled for that purpose.

[Exegesis of the text] In some editions “qiu chan” (seeking chan) is written as “shan,” pronounced shan. Lu Wenchao notes: in old copies “chan” was written with the “shi” (show) radical by mistake, matching the commentary; this has now been corrected. “Pang” is read bang (Bo Gang fan). Cui’s commentary: chan pang is the coffin. Sima’s commentary: when a coffin plank is formed from one whole edge of lumber, it is called chan pang.

[5] (Commentary) Those who possess usable talent or material can hardly avoid cherishing and clinging to it.

[5] (Sub-commentary) Because they are “useful,” they do not live out the full span of years that creation allots; halfway through life they perish at the craftsman's hand—all misfortune brought on by ability and utility.

Exegesis

“Sǎng” refers to the forehead; “kàng” means high or prominent. “Kàng bí” (high-rising nose) describes a high forehead that makes the nose appear elevated as well. “Zhì” denotes conditions such as fistula or ulcer of the lower body. Wū (shamans) and zhù (invokers) sacrifice dogs in ritual and select cattle and pigs for the “jiě” rite; they were supposed to choose animals of pure color and sound build and present them with reverent ceremony so that spirits might respond in the hidden realm. Yet now they bring pigs with upturned snouts and bent foreheads, calves with white foreheads that are not “xīng” (sacrificial red), and persons afflicted with fistulas and bodily impurity—these three are all impure, so they cannot be offered in sacrifice at the spirit river. In antiquity some people were drowned in the river to appease the River Lord; when Ximen Bao served as magistrate of Ye, he abolished such practices—this belongs to the same kind of abuse.

Textual notes

(Phonetic glosses for characters such as “jiě,” “sǎng,” “kàng bí,” “zhì,” “shì hé,” and “xīng,” together with lacunae in older editions and the supplementary character “yún,” are omitted here following the abbreviated treatment in the source.)

Commentary [7]

From this, wū and zhù can also see that what is “unfit” (bù chéng cái) may instead be preserved.

Commentary [8]

What preserves life and fate is what people call “great good fortune” (dà jí xiáng). Wū and zhù treat “unfitness” as inauspicious and refuse to use such offerings, yet the other party precisely because of that “inauspiciousness” manages to preserve life and fate—which is instead the greatest good fortune. The Spirit Person (shén rén) has no fixed mind; they simply follow and accommodate the ten thousand things. Therefore the great good fortune spoken of in the world is not something the Spirit Person opposes.

【Commentary】

When a woman performs shamanic rites she is called a wu (shaman); when a man does so he is called an xi. A zhu is someone who holds ritual slips and intones sacrificial texts. Xiang means auspicious and good. When shamans and recorders of ritual perform the jiechu (removal/exorcism) sacrifice, they know that conditions such as a white forehead, a high-bridged nose, or hemorrhoids make one unfit to receive the offering, so they set such persons aside as inauspicious. Yet the sage who has attained the Way shares the same understanding as creation itself and sees that “what is not shaped into useful timber will not be cut and used”—and thus preserves life and body. Talk of white foreheads, upturned noses, and the “inauspiciousness” of hemorrhoids is only the shallow view of petty shamans; how could it match the far-reaching wisdom of a great sage! Therefore, when talent and form are incomplete, that is, in the eyes of the divine person (shenren), something auspicious and greatly good.

【Textual notes】

(1) The characters yi and zhi are transposed in accordance with the Shide Tang edition.

(2) Notes on the readings yi, wu qie yang, and the like. Under Guo Xiang’s commentary the two characters zuo qiang (“written as qiang”) may be missing. Under qiang in the Guangyun, qiang ke also appears as zang ke, with a pronunciation close to lang. The Hanshu·Dili zhi note on Zangke Commandery says: “Zang and qiang are posts for mooring boats.” Thus Guo’s text reads qiang, i.e. the qiang of qiang ke—graphically similar to yi and close in meaning but different in sound; its reading is qie yang fan, so qiang is clearly not yi.

Zhi Li Shu is a well-known figure in the Zhuangzi. The commentator Sima Biao explains that zhili describes a body that is maimed and “broken apart,” while shu is the person’s name. In phonetic glosses, yi is read by fanqie; yuding is read as written, though some manuscripts have xiang with the same pronunciation. Sima Biao adds that the image is of a hunched back and a neck drawn inward, as if the head were pulled down between the shoulders. The Huainan commentators say instead that the spine and windpipe rise higher than the crown of the head.

[2] [Shu]

Huicuo refers to hair gathered high on the crown in a topknot. Wuguan means the back-shu points of the five viscera (the back transport points corresponding to the five organs). In traditional understanding, these points lie on the back, while the usual topknot sits toward the rear of the crown. Because Zhi Li Shu was crippled and stooped, the visceral shu points on his back and the position of his topknot both seemed to face upward; his thighs and buttocks were contracted, pressed tight against his ribs.

This passage explains several lines in the Zhuangzi chapter “Da Zong Shi” (The Great Master) that describe an odd bodily form; among them, the term hui cuo is interpreted differently by different commentators.

Xiang Xiu and Xu Miao read hui with the ancient huo cut (a sound close to huo) and cuo with the zi huo cut. Cui Zuan said that hui cuo refers to the xiang zhui—the vertebrae at the back of the neck, in the region of the da zhui (great prominence). Sima Biao, by contrast, took hui cuo to mean the hair bun: in antiquity the bun was worn at the nape; when the spine was bent and the head hung down, the bun pointed upward, hence “pointing at Heaven.” Xiang Xiu also said the two shoulders hunched upward, so the whole figure took the shape of hui cuo.

Li Zhen held that Cui Zuan’s reading as xiang zhui was acceptable. In the same chapter of Da Zong Shi there is “ju zhui points at Heaven”; Li Yi glossed ju zhui as xiang zhui, shaped like an excrescence—a point that supports Cui’s view. The Suwen, “Ci Re” chapter, has “three vertebrae above the nape, depressed in the middle, cuo-like”; Wang Bing’s note treats this as the usual way of counting vertebrae. Shen Tong’s Shi Gu says: from the great prominence downward there are twenty-one segments in all, collectively called the spine or vertebral column. Cui Zuan’s gloss of hui cuo as xiang zhui agrees with Nanjing, Difficulty 45, “the meeting of bones at da shu”—Zhang Zhongjing’s note: the da shu point lies at the first vertebra behind the neck; the bones on either side are braced from here downward, so bones “meet” at da shu. From this one can see that hui cuo originally took its sense from “meeting of bones,” and because that meeting lies among the great vertebral region, it is called xiang zhui. Xu Jian’s Chuxue Ji (Tang) cites the graph as [variant form related to hui cuo], and the Yupian explains that [that graph] denotes a knot in wood, similar to a spinal segment; if one writes it with the wood radical as [another variant], the meaning fits even better.

Comment: The yi (jaw/chin) belongs to the exterior and hui cuo and the five conduit openings belong to the interior: when the chin is drawn in, the shoulders show prominently, hence high shoulders; when the xiang zhui faces Heaven, the shu (transport/openings) of the five zang lie above—inner and outer correspond, each arising in mutual completion.

[Commentary (Shu)] When there is fighting on the frontier, the court must summon the brave. People with long-standing illness and mutilated bodies cannot endure campaigning; for that reason they have no dread of conscription and may swing their arms freely in the lanes and wander at ease. Because they rely on their own “uselessness,” they need not hide away.

[5][Annotation (Zhu)] Relying on one’s own uselessness, one therefore does not have to steal off and conceal oneself.

[Commentary (Shu)] The same idea: when the borderlands need recruits, those broken by illness cannot answer the call, so they feel no fear of being pressed into service and may roam with arms akimbo in the alleys; precisely because they are useless, they need not flee and hide.

[Textual Notes (Shiwen)] Pronunciation: rang (as in the traditional fanqie gloss); yu qi xian is read according to the usual sense of the characters—Sima Biao says xian means the lanes within a neighborhood; Cui Yuan’s version writes yu qi kai, explaining it as the sense of a gateway or door. Cuan ni (to flee and hide): nü li fan.

[6][Annotation (Zhu)] Not being able to bear corvée labor—this is exactly the point.

[Commentary (Shu)] When the state imposes heavy corvée, because of chronic affliction one is not counted in the corvée quota and is not assigned to labor.

[7][Annotation (Zhu)] When labor is assigned, one does not take part; when gifts are handed out, one accepts them.

[Commentary (Shu)] Six shi and four dou make one zhong. The ruler pities the widowed and orphaned and shows compassion for the poor and sick; when deformity is severe, what is granted is often greater. Guo Xiang’s note says: one does not join corvée tasks but does receive largesse—that is the meaning.

[Textual Notes (Shiwen)] San zhong (three zhong): Sima Biao says six hu and four dou are called one zhong. (The annotation and the commentary express the same idea.) Lu Wenchao remarks: in older editions “six” was wrongly written as hu; this has now been corrected. Bu yu: read as yu (“to take part”).

This commentary explains the difference in the Zhuangzi between “making the form fragmented” and “making virtue (De) fragmented.”

Fragmentation of form versus fragmentation of De

To leave the body fragmented (like Fragmented Form Shu, whose body is maimed) belongs on the level of forgetting the form; only when De itself is also fragmented does one reach forgetting De. But someone like Fragmented Form Shu, who is merely maimed and sick in body, counts at most as forgetting form—not yet a sage—and therefore cannot yet forget De.

What “forgetting De” means

One who truly forgets De: wisdom pervades the ten thousand things, yet draws that wisdom back into simplicity; brightness shines with sun, moon, and stars, yet draws that light back into obscurity. Hence when things are done, one does not claim merit; when one acts, one does not lean on it—credit is left to the multitude, one merges with things without leaving a trace. That is what forgetting De is.

Forgetting form is already enough; forgetting De goes deeper

Someone who forgets form is already enough to nourish life and finish out one’s natural span, and to escape the calamities of the human world; how much more so forgetting De? The two differ in height and depth—they cannot be put on the same level.

Conclusion

Those who can fragment their De are probably sages alone.

When Confucius traveled to the state of Chu, a man known as the “Madman” Jieyu wandered in front of his lodging and sang: “Phoenix, phoenix—how has the sage’s virtue fallen to this! The age to come cannot be counted on; what is past cannot be recovered. When the world is in order, the sage can accomplish great things; when the world is without the Way, the sage seeks only to preserve life. In times like these, merely escaping punishment is achievement enough. Good fortune is as light as a feather, yet no one knows how to carry it on the back; misfortune is as heavy as the earth, yet no one knows to step aside. Enough, enough—do not press virtue upon people! Perilous, perilous—like running hard inside a circle already drawn! The sun beats down fiercely—do not block my path! The road I walk is winding—do not hurt my feet!”

Jieyu likens Confucius to a “phoenix” that ought to appear in an age of good government: the world is already in disorder, yet he still roams everywhere advocating and hoping to transform the realm through virtue—this is out of step with the times and only adds risk. “The age to come cannot be counted on; what is past cannot be recovered” means to grasp only what is before you: when the time favors you, do not force things; when it does not, do not strain against it. What the annotation calls “the fitting way to meet and adapt” (huitong zhi yi) is to withdraw when withdrawal is called for and stop when stopping is called for—there is no need to let rise and fall stir the heart. The closing lines use “dazzling yang” (miyang) as a figure for the harshness of a chaotic age, and a “crooked, winding” path (quequ) for the way to preserve oneself: not to confront others head-on by “bringing virtue to bear on them,” nor to blindly follow the crowd as if running inside a drawn circle, but simply to keep on the road and protect the feet—that is, to guard the person whole and avoid being harmed by the disorder around one.

If in the future there truly appears a ruler who honors the Dao and seeks the worthy, one could answer that call and go forth; yet the mandate of Heaven turns like a galloping horse—once the moment passes it cannot be recovered, so one must not wait in vain. The age of sage-kings such as Yao and Shun belongs to a distant past of change; one cannot go on chasing that old pattern either. What matters is to fit the present situation and measure, without constantly looking ahead or looking back.

Leave things to their own course, and principle will arise of itself. “Arising and completing” is not something I manufacture by force—how then could one lightly swap one’s integrity and constancy just because the world is ordered or in chaos? In times of peace, each person seeks success; the sage leaves completion in the world without claiming completion for himself, and so there is no failure. In chaotic times, each person scrambles to preserve life; the sage forgets attachment to his own survival and does not cling to life, and so is not destroyed by “seeking life.”

When a ruler has the Dao and the age is clear, the sage spreads the teaching and brings the world to fulfillment. When the ruler is dark and the age is in decline, and one’s lot falls in a season of wild disorder, what fits is preserving life and keeping far from harm, hiding one’s light and leaving no track (concealing one’s edge and not displaying one’s path)—not forcing oneself out to meet the world.

One need not glance before and behind; one should use up the opportunity of this very moment. When one is dimly one with the age and secretly in tune with the times, only then can the subtle Dao be kept whole and one can escape the snare of xingming (punitive law and formal blame).

Here fang means “what one ought to do.” In today’s age of ruin and disorder—an era in decline like the late Zhou—wei xing yan xun (acting with caution, speaking with deference) is barely enough to avoid execution; if one still zhiji yingpin (clings to old footprints and accepts a ruler’s invitation), is that not delusion? These are words of Jie Yu (the “Madman of Chu”), meant to mock Confucius.

The feet can walk—yet to “fang pin” (let oneself go forth on appointment and wander the states seeking office), is that not empty pretense? Again, Jie Yu’s barb aimed at Confucius.

[5] (Commentary)

When the feet can walk, let them walk naturally; when the hands can grasp, let them grasp naturally. Whatever the ears hear, hear it; whatever the eyes see, see it. Use intelligence only as far as one understands; exert ability only as far as one can manage. Use what should be used, do what should be done, act within the scope of one’s nature as the heart moves—do not mix in the slightest with matters outside one’s part. This is the most effortless approach within Wuwei (non-action).

There has never been one who could not preserve nature and life through wuwei; nor has one heard of preserving nature and life yet failing to obtain good fortune. Thus what is called fortune is precisely that kind of “wholeness” just described—not something bestowed by external things; why treat something as light as a goose feather as one’s reliance? Moving in accord with nature without overstepping bounds is the most effortless in the world; lifting what one can lift and bearing what one can bear is the lightest in the world. Yet people harm nature and life through boundless pursuit and stir the true heart with desire and aversion—thereupon they abandon this most effortless wuwei and practice the hardest youwei (deliberate action); they discard the lightest duties within their own strength and take up the heavy load of carrying others and harming their nature—this is the fault people commonly commit.

[Exegesis]

In To the Easy, “yi” is read by the fanqie of chi (fermented beans), same below. In Know with, “yi” is equivalent to zhi (wisdom). In desire and aversion, “wu” is read by the fanqie wu-lu.

[6] (Commentary)

Relying only on the capacity originally present in one’s nature—even carrying ten thousand jun of weight—one does not feel heavy; if one props oneself up with external things, not even one zhu or one shu feels bearable. What turns inward and follows nature is fortune, so fortune is the lightest; what turns outward and chases things is misfortune, so misfortune is the heaviest. When misfortune has already pressed upon the body yet one still does not know to avoid it—this is the greatest folly of people in the world.

[Subcommentary]

Seeing, hearing, and intelligence all ought to have limits. Staying within one’s proper share can preserve the full span of years; outward greed necessarily cuts life short. Preserving nature and life is fortune; outward pursuit is misfortune—hence misfortune is heaviest. Misfortune pressing on the body without knowing to avoid it is precisely where people in the world are deeply deluded.

Commentary: The capacities of seeing, hearing, and knowing each have their limits. Staying within one’s proper place can preserve life; chasing what lies outside that place leads to early death. Preserving life is fortune; perishing is misfortune. Yet the fortune within one’s place is as light as a goose feather—those who grasp and compete do not see that blessing is already in themselves. The misfortune outside one’s place is as heavy as packed earth—those who will not wake up do not know that disaster should be shunned from within. That is the usual failing of the vulgar, which is why the stories of Kongzi (Confucius) and Lu Tong (Jieyu) are used to show how one is dragged down.

Textual note: In Zhi bi (“Knowing how to avoid”), older texts write zhi for “to set/establish.” On bu sheng (“not overcoming”), sheng is read like sheng (“to rise”).

[Seven] Annotation: If you draw a line on the ground and make someone walk it, the traced mark cannot be hidden. If the mind clings to a fixed “I” when facing things, there is no way to merge with them in silent union. Therefore the “great person” does not shine their clarity on others or force others to be clear, but lets others clarify themselves; does not press their De (Virtue/Power) on others or lord it over them, but leaves others to fulfill De on their own (some old texts read “self-attainment”). Only then can one penetrate the ten thousand things, mysteriously align self and other, become one with all under Heaven, and share blessing inside and out.

Commentary: Yi means “stop”; dai means “danger.” Kongzi lived in the waning late Zhou, in an age of thin virtue. He carried the traces of the sage, traveled the states to offer counsel, yet was repeatedly rejected, driven away, and slandered. Hence the repeated yi hu—“enough”—better to stop than to go on that way. If one applies the five virtues over the people and abandons oneself to imitate outer things, one will endanger oneself—like drawing a line on the ground for others to chase: wasted cleverness and spirit, and the mark still cannot be covered. Leading things by one’s own measure works the same way.

Textual note: In hua di (“drawing on the ground”), hua is read like huo (“to capture/obtain”).

[Eight] Annotation: Mi yang (“bewildering yang”) is like wang yang (“lost yang”)—not displaying or relying on what is outward. Losing yang yet acting on one’s own, not scattering oneself on external things, then the conduct of “I” is complete. If all under Heaven each preserve their own “I,” then whoever speaks of “I” is not incomplete.

Commentary

[Commentary] “Mi” (concealment) means to hide and not show oneself; “yang” (manifestation) means to display, assert oneself, and act proactively. Lu Tong urges Confucius not to stand out sharply. He should hide his brilliance and tread lightly, rely on natural wuwei (non-action) and alone trust his own course, and need not meet the outer world everywhere with clever stratagems. In that way he keeps to his proper place and preserves himself, and whatever is spoken of as “me” or tied to the self can also be kept whole.

[Commentary (alternative reading)] The same point: mi is concealment; yang is showing oneself and moving. Lu Tong urges Ni Fu (Confucius) to hide his tracks and dim his light. He should let go into solitary reliance on wuwei, forget the “wise knowing” of deliberately answering things, stop at what is allotted to him, and not harm the life-cultivating practice of “preserving the whole self.”

[Textual note] “Mi yang”: Sima Biao says mi yang means “fu yang”—to store yang qi inward—figuratively, feigning madness or eccentricity to hide the true self.

[Note 9] Indirectly completing what one undertakes naturally brings self-sufficiency.

[Commentary] Here qì (written qiè) is taken in the sense of “empty”; qū (bending/compliance) means yielding and following. When the heart holds emptiness and follows the nature of things, whatever is called “I” is already enough for oneself; there is no need to seek outside.

[Textual note] “Qiè qū”: Pronunciation given as qù fǎn. Lexicons write the graph as a variant form (commonly discussed in editions as distinct from the standard “qiè” graph). Guangya: the graph means “bent/crooked.” Lu Wenchao notes that both Shuowen and Guangya in his day used that form. Qing Fan adds: qiè, as in the pronunciation gloss, is written with the “qu” element in some sources. Shuowen: the character means “walking crookedly,” from the phonetic element. Guangya: bent/crooked. Jiyun gives another form meaning “things bent,” also “bent reception.” Yupian gives the reading qiū jǐ fǎn. Shuowen again: “to hide,” picturing bent concealment; the original form used a “box/hidden” element, now often written with the bent/crooked graph.

[Collation] (1) A corrupt passage in Zhang Junfang’s text reads “my conduct” where others have qiè qū. (2) In the Shide Hall edition, “the one who governs” and “the one who brings disorder” lack the particle “zhe.” (3) The word “de” (virtue) follows Zhao Jianyi’s edition.

“Mountain timber brings harm upon itself; tallow and flame consume themselves.”

The commentary explains that kou (being invaded or harmed) means suffering felling and injury. Trees in the hills—such as qiu and zi—because they yield usable timber, draw the axe and adze. Grease and oil that can light lamps, because they serve a purpose, are lit and used up. Sima Biao’s gloss is even more vivid: wood grows into an axe handle, then is used to chop trees of its own kind; oil feeds a flame, and the flame burns the oil away. Cui Zuan adds: where there is wood on the mountain, fire comes to burn it—all pointing that because something is “useful,” it invites its own disaster.

“Cassia can be eaten, so it is felled; lacquer is useful, so the tree is gashed.”

The heartwood of the cassia tree is pungent and aromatic; it can be eaten or used in medicine, so people cut it down. Lacquer trees yield lacquer for vessels, so people slash them. The notes stress: both perish under axe and blade because they have talent and practical value.

“Everyone knows the use of what is useful, but none know the use of what is useless.”

Most people only grasp this: once you show yourself as useful, you are pressed into service, drained, even endangered (Guo Xiang: the useful must work for others and build merit for them; the useless can instead preserve their own lives).

Far fewer understand that deliberately being “useless,” scattering and deforming the body, hiding talent and shunning use is also a way to live—like the crooked tree at Quyuan, the tree at Shangqiu, the white-foreheaded ox, the pig with a turned-up snout: because they fail to fit any “use,” they escape slaughter. People flash talent and compete to be “usefully useful”; they do not see that splitting off and displaying virtue, content to stay useless, is the subtlety of “the use of uselessness.” Guo’s summary: the useful joins in others’ achievements; the useless keeps one’s own life intact—in troubled times this is both Zhuangzi’s reminder to preserve oneself and a sober look at how outstanding ability invites disaster.

(Commentary on section three) Chang Ji was a worthy man of the state of Lu. Wang Tai wandered freely in all directions: outwardly he could forget bodily form, inwardly his virtue was full. For that reason those who followed him in study numbered as many as three thousand, almost splitting Lu with Confucius’s disciples. Chang Ji had not grasped his meaning, so doubt arose in his heart.

(Explanatory note) On the figure “Chang Ji,” one view holds that he was a disciple of Confucius.

(Commentary on section four, annotation) The meaning is: each person has whatever he has gained, and that is already enough for himself.

(Commentary on section four, subcommentary) Though his disciples were many, Wang Tai never preached doctrine: he would stand without lecturing and sit without holding disputation. When someone sought instruction, he would go in humility to tell them; when the other understood the principle, he returned with his mind full. Another reading: someone who has not yet studied but already possesses virtue can also be said to “go empty”—carrying an empty cup when he goes.

(Explanatory note) “He would stand without lecturing and sit without holding disputation”: Sima Biao glosses this as standing without teaching and sitting without debating.

(Commentary on section five, annotation) One marvels that his form is mutilated yet his inner being is so replete. When the heart is complete, one leaves form behind and forgets the body, forgets the five viscera (wuzang—that is, no longer clinging to the physical frame or fleshly self), and suddenly goes alone; even the whole world cannot hold him back.

(Commentary on section five, subcommentary) In guiding disciples he never spoke or argued in words. His form was mutilated to such a degree that there was scarcely any “appearance” left to describe, yet the profound Dao and supreme virtue were complete within his heart. He must originally have possessed this virtue; only then would the multitude follow him.

(Explanatory note) “Five viscera (wuzang)”: the character read zang (storehouse/viscera) is given its pronunciation in the fanqie method used elsewhere in this commentary.

(Commentary on section six, subcommentary) Chang Ji saw that though his body was maimed he drew an enormous following and found it strange; wishing to display the beauty of “virtue filling the person” (de chong), he raised this question.

Confucius said: “This gentleman is a sage. I, Kong Qiu, have merely fallen behind and have not yet gone to receive instruction at his side. If even I must take him as my teacher, how much more those who do not match Kong Qiu! Why limit this to Lu alone? I would lead everyone under Heaven to follow him.”

One

Commentary: Confucius called Wang Tai “Master” (fuzi). Chang Ji was puzzled; Confucius replied that Wang Tai is a sage who embodies the Great Dao (Da)—it was Chang Ji who failed to recognize the man and therefore doubted. Confucius himself had merely fallen behind others and had not yet gone to visit him. He would honor Wang Tai as his teacher and learn from him; how much more should those who came to study later and were not Confucius’s equals gladly follow him—that was only to be expected.

Textual note (character gloss): “Qiu ye zhi hou er wei wang er”—Li Yun: meaning that he ranked behind the crowd and had not yet gone to take Wang Tai as teacher. Qing Fan’s note: “Zhi” here is “te” (merely, only). In Lüshi chunqiu, “Zhong li” (Loyalty and Integrity), “Te wangzi Qing Ji wei zhi er bu sha” (It was merely Prince Qing Ji of Wu who dressed the part but did not kill), Gao You glosses “te” as “zhi ye.” In Guofeng · Bo zhou, “Shi wei wo te,” the Han recension of Shijing has “zhi.” In Shiji · Shusun Tong zhuan, “Wu zhi xi er,” Hanshu has “te.”

Two

Annotation: When mind-and-spirit (shen) is complete and original nature (xing) is fully present, the bodily form merges indistinguishably with the ten thousand things. One who merges with things—no one under Heaven can pull him away; this is not limited to a single state!

Commentary: “Xi” means “he” (what). “Why limit it to borrowing the one state of Lu! I will lead all under Heaven to inherit his abundant virtue, yet still fear the Dao is not fully transmitted.”

Textual note: “Neng yuan”—“yuan” read yu wan fan (phonetic note).

Chang Ji said: “That man’s form is withered and dry, yet Wang Tai honors him as Master—the gap between him and ordinary people is vast indeed. If it is really so, would he not lead all under Heaven and carry forward abundant virtue, yet still fear the Dao is not exhausted? What is so uniquely distinctive about the way he applies his mind?”

Textual note: Same as above for “Neng yuan.”

Chang Ji added: “Bi wu zhe ye, er Wang xiansheng, qi yu yong yi yuan yi”—That man’s form is withered, yet Wang Tai calls him Master; he is far from the commonplace. If so, “qi yong xin ye du ruo zhi he?”—How uniquely does he apply his mind?

In this context, “wang” means to surpass or excel, and “yong” means ordinary. The “Master” referred to is Confucius. The man named Wang Tai had a maimed body and a strange appearance, yet the followers in his school outnumbered Confucius’s. Chang Ji found this puzzling: someone so unusual ought to stand far apart from ordinary people.

Chang Ji went on to ask: with virtue as high as Wang Tai’s, and everyone turning to him, what kind of mind and what methods did he use to achieve this?

Confucius said: “Death and life are the greatest changes in human affairs, yet Wang Tai does not change along with them—even if heaven and earth were overturned, he would not be ‘lost.’ He has seen through to the root that cannot be false, does not drift with external things, follows the transformations of the ten thousand things, yet keeps to his own root.”

Note on the commentary (to help when reading the original):

People change every day, but death and life are the greatest of those changes. Wang Tai is one with change itself, so for “him,” death and life can no longer replace or transform him in that way.

In “does not change along with them and is not lost with them,” “lost” means to lose or be deprived: even if heaven and earth collapsed and fell, since he already rests outside safety and danger, he would not lose the true “self.”

It is also said: Wang Tai’s heart-and-mind is in silent union with creation and moves with transformation; walking among people, he treats death and life as things experienced together, so change in the usual sense does not reach him. This is spoken along the grain of the principle: not by stiffly resisting heaven and earth, but because he is no longer carried off by outer circumstances.

[Commentary 4]

Grasp this: even if heaven and earth overturn and collapse, and one dwells in dim confusion where safety and danger can no longer be told apart, one still does not lose the “I”—the self that is originally so.

[Textual note]

In “though heaven and earth overturn,” “overturn” is read fu. “Fall” appears in one manuscript as a homograph variant read dui. Li Yi says: if heaven and earth cannot alter the self, how much less can birth and death!

[Commentary 4, continued]

One must examine that nature-and-life (xingming) are rightly like this. Qingfan notes: the character here rendered as “ought” is likely a scribal error for “flaw”; the sense is to examine oneself and find no flaw, then let outer things shift on their own without being used by things. The Huainanzi, “Spiritual Training” chapter, has exactly “examine that there is no flaw.” The words for “flaw” and “provisional name” were often confused because their sounds are close (parallel cases appear in the Han shu, Shiji, Zuozhuan, and Book of Rites traditions on personal names).

[Commentary 5]

Let things change and migrate by themselves.

[Subcommentary]

With the mind at ease in examination, the subtle body returns to true origin; once one has accorded with the Dao, one is not pulled away or moved by outer things.

[Commentary 6]

Treat transformation as allotted fate (ming), without straying from the Dao.

[Commentary 7]

Do not leave the extreme of “ utmost fittingness”—the most appropriate, most original boundary.

[Subcommentary]

Penetrating allotted fate, one is darkly non-attached to outer things; taking only fate, taking only things, one goes along with transformation; in movement one does not violate stillness, and so constantly abides in the root.

[Textual note]

In “strange guai and wu,” wu is read wu; one manuscript also writes a homograph variant, likewise below.

Chang Ji said: “What does that mean?”

[Subcommentary 1]

The principle is hidden and hard to awaken to, so he asks again to clear doubt.

Although what each person takes as good differs, everyone has something they regard as good. When everyone insists that only their own way is good, it is as if all things were reduced to a single kind of “good”; when everyone insists only they are right, the world is left with only one kind of “right.” If you follow differences and keep stressing difference, then under heaven nothing is not “different.” But the person whose mind is broad and who surveys the great vista treats heaven and earth as his office and gathers the ten thousand things into his storehouse. Understanding that “difference” itself is nothing to cling to, he then looks along what is the same in things and sees sameness—affirming what each affirms, under heaven all counts as “right”; if you follow difference and stress difference, under heaven nothing is not “different.” Likewise, the person of vast vision also sees that “sameness” is not something to hold fast to, and looks along the side where there is no opposition—so right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, can all be said to have no fixed division. Thinking I am right and you wrong, that I am good and others bad, runs from the heart through perception down to tiny insects—mostly the same pattern. But that is only seeing one’s own standpoint clearly, not the other’s. As for one who penetrates the subtle principle and dissolves opposition, he uses heaven-and-earth itself to illuminate heaven-and-earth: if the world does not say “I am wrong,” he sees that under heaven there is in fact no absolute “wrong”; if it does not say “the other is right,” he sees that under heaven there is in fact no absolute “right.” With no fixed “this” and “not-this,” merged into one body, he can follow change, let transformation nurture things, and meet outer things without being shaken.

As for one who penetrates the subtle principle, his mind is vast and he surveys the ten thousand things; the two poles of heaven and earth and all affairs can appear to him like “one finger” or “one horse”—images from Zhuangzi’s “Discourse on Making Things Equal” (Qi Wu Lun) for what can be leveled and seen as one. Thus he can drop self-fixation, go along with outer things, and greatly accord with living beings. Still, those who fix on “sameness” see only sameness; those who fix on “difference” see only difference. At the most profound level, it is neither simply to say “different” nor simply to say “same.”

Pronunciation notes (Shiwen): In “zhong zhi,” “zhi” is read like “zhi” (wisdom); in “bu she,” “she” is read like “she” (shè).

【Commentary】

What the ears should hear and the eyes should see originally points to how easily people discriminate and cling when it comes to sound and color. Ordinary people love to split things into “fitting / unfitting” and “permissible / impermissible,” and drown in that. Wang Tai, a figure in the Zhuangzi, treated the myriad things as one body and birth and death as the same affair, so he did not keep fixed views of beautiful and ugly, good and bad over what the senses touch.

【Annotation】

When attachment and discrimination toward sound and color are released, one is no longer tied by “fitting / unfitting” or “permissible / impermissible.” Wang Tai blended with the myriad things and merged with death and life—how could he still hold views of beauty and ugliness between sense faculties and their objects?

【Annotation】

Even the notion of “what is fitting” is forgotten, so nothing cannot be accommodated or borne. To say that everything is accommodated yet something still cannot be done has never happened; to say that nothing is impossible yet harmony is still lacking has never been heard of. Therefore the heart is placed in the domain opened by Dao and De: everywhere appropriate without strain, everywhere at ease without constraint.

【Commentary】

Once the myriad things are blended and one no longer calculates what suits ears and eyes, one can roam within Dao and De and let nature take its course in the utmost realm of the Way.

【Annotation】

When the mind of subtle insight that grasps the utmost principle is realized, nothing fails to be aligned with it. When nothing fails to be aligned, transformation through death and life is nowhere outside “me.” Birth is the moment “I” meet; death is the sequence “I” follow. The moment is “my” gathering; the sequence is “my” dispersing. Gathering and dispersing differ in form, yet for me both are phases of “me”—so in life there was never really “gaining,” and in death there is never really “losing.” Treating the changes of death and life as one body, once that unity is seen, one sheds constraints like sloughing skin, merges self and other in deep sameness, takes death and life as sleep and waking, and takes the bodily form as an inn for a traveler. Leaving life is like stepping out of shoes; losing a foot is like casting off mud. I have never seen anything that could still entangle his heart.

【Commentary】

“Seeing things as things” means viewing things and looking at them on equal terms with all things. Wang Tai, having aligned everything as one, was free and unattached, merged self and other in deep sameness, took death and life as waking and sleeping and the bodily form as a journey’s lodging; leaving life was like slipping off sandals, severed feet like discarded earth—I have never seen anything that could bind and wrap his heart.

On “viewing things as things” and Wang Tai

“Viewing things as things” means treating what is outside you as nothing more than outside things. Wang Tai took life and death as one continuum and saw “the other” and “the self” on the same level. While alive he did not feel he had gained anything; when dead he did not feel he had lost anything; he looked on everything under heaven as blended into one undifferentiated whole. So even though his foot was maimed (wuzú), in his eyes it was like a clod of earth thrown away—no big deal.

Chang Ji asked:

“Does he still rely on his own cleverness to cultivate and preserve himself? Does he use ‘mind’ to grasp another ‘mind’? If he had truly reached that unchanging constant heart, why would the ten thousand things need to treat him as specially worthy?”

(Commentators on what Chang Ji means)

Here “the other” (bǐ) means Wang Tai. Chang Ji’s point is: though Wang Tai cultivated himself and turned toward goodness, he was still deploying mind and knowledge; Chang Ji doubts he had yet achieved “forgetting knowledge” and instead propped himself up with cleverness alone.

There is a further layer: Chang Ji also doubts that Wang Tai had let go of “heart” as well and truly rested in self-sufficiency—hence the follow-up: if he already possessed the constant heart, why would the ten thousand things need to honor him alone?

Commentary (Cheng Xuanying’s explanation):

This passage criticizes Wang Tai for still not being able to let go of attachment completely and follow what is natural. If one still relies on “using the mind” to replace it with “obtaining the mind,” that is not truly attaining the Way. One who truly obtains the mind is without thought and without worry, letting go even of knowing and awareness; the mind is like dead ashes and the form like withered wood, still and undisturbed. Such a mind rests within the square inch, yet naturally arises beyond seeing and hearing, sharing the covering and bearing of Heaven and Earth as the two principles, following the sun, moon, and stars as the three luminaries in their clarity, not disturbing the spirit amid filth, and not going against ordinary concern even in hardship and adversity. What is called “obtaining” cannot be taken as having obtained something; what is real lies in “no obtaining” yet self-attaining—only that counts as true obtaining. If one “obtains” through mental knowing, numerology, and the like, that is not true obtaining.

Note (Guo Xiang):

Obtaining the constant mind is originally an ordinary, natural state of going along with things. What is regrettable is not being able to remain evenly at ease and follow along all the time: as soon as one meets external things, discrimination arises, so one often waits for things to come to oneself rather than adjusting oneself to the myriad things.

Commentary:

Here zui (most) is read in the sense of ju (gather/assemble). If one can empty the mind, forget scheming, and keep to plain simplicity, obtaining the true constant mind ought to mean harmonizing one’s light and blending with the dust, no different from the vulgar—how could one stand apart with novelty and make the crowd come to attach to oneself?

Textual notes (phonology and collation, brief):

The character read as zui has readings such as cu hui fan in the traditional glossaries; Sima Biao glosses it as ju (gather). Some scholars note: knowing tends outward while the mind holds inward; using knowing to obtain the mind means relying on externals to preserve inner harmony. The mind is the unceasing true mechanism; the constant mind is the non-deluded root-nature; using the mind to verify the constant mind is using awareness to realize the Dao. The Shuowen gives zui the sense “to violate and take”—understandable as external things not being able to violate this mind. Some hold Guo Xiang’s punctuation is mistaken. According to the Shuowen, another graph expressed “accumulation”; later writers often wrote zui for it, and in canonical texts the sense of gathering is often written zui.

Confucius said that people do not look for their reflection in running water, only in water that is still; only through zhi—stillness, settling, and quiet—can the myriad things each take their proper place and come to rest.

Those who receive the qi and life-mandate of the earth—only pine and cypress stay green through winter and summer; those who receive the qi and life-mandate of heaven—only Shun could always hold to centered uprightness. He was fortunate enough to set his own life straight first, and only then set straight all beings under heaven.

What is called the sign of “preserving the beginning” is having in the heart genuine virtue that is “without fear.” A brave warrior can charge alone into an army of thousands; people who can discipline themselves and take charge for the sake of reputation can still do as much—how much more someone like Wang Tai, who takes heaven and earth as his office, embraces the myriad things, treats the six bodily members merely as a lodging, ears and eyes as openings through which outer things are reflected, knows with one and the same awareness, yet whose heart-mind never shifts with the life and death of things! He would even choose a day to dengjia—to ascend and borrow the Way to go beyond—and the multitude would follow of themselves; how could he treat worldly affairs as the work of a lifetime?

Commentators explain: still water can reflect not because the water sets out to be a mirror; Wang Tai can draw a crowd not because he pulls outer things to obey him. Still water does not attach feeling to what is reflected, and things show their images on their own; Wang Tai likewise has no mind to recruit, yet people gather of themselves.

Explanatory text

The character read as jian is glossed in the old fanqie system as the reverse cut for zan (that is, the fanqie note for the graph jian).

“Flowing water”: in Cui’s annotated edition the wording is mo shui, with a note that mo is sometimes written as liu (flow). Qingfan comments: “flowing water” and “still water” are set against each other, so Cui’s use of mo is wrong. In clerical script liu (flow) was sometimes written with a form close to mo (as in inscriptions such as the stele after the feast at Confucius’s temple by the Lu Chancellor Shi Chen). Cui therefore mistook liu for mo. Huainanzi, “Discourse on Mountains,” has “no one mirrors himself in mo rain”; Gao You’s note says mo rain may appear as liu liao (running floodwater). So mo is originally a corrupted form of liu—this can be taken as settled.

Section two [Commentary]

If the mind is bent on deliberate “doing” and motion, one cannot settle like water in the place where things naturally ought to rest.

Subcommentary

Wei means alone, only. “Only stopping” (wei zhi): water by nature is settled and clear; “able to stop” (neng zhi): it can halt and reflect whoever comes; “multitude stopping” (zhong zhi): whatever things arrive can be reflected. This is like Wang Tai (Wang Tai: a figure in the Zhuangzi who forgets bodily form and holds to emptiness and non-attachment)—with nothing hung on the mind and in quiet stillness, he can receive and “stop” living beings; because of this capacity, everyone turns toward him.

Section three [Commentary]

Pine and cypress are specially endowed with that portion of “concentrated qi” (zhong qi: focused, outstanding natural qi) from heaven-and-earth nature, so they stand out among trees—not because they later want to become pine and cypress.

Subcommentary

Ordinary plants and trees rely on deep earth for nourishment. Those with firm texture that do not wither in deep winter—in pine and cypress, green all year round—are so because their endowment of qi is like that, not because they consciously make themselves so. That Wang Tai can gather a crowd works the same way: it is his nature, not a performance.

Section four [Commentary]

Those who truly receive “natural upright qi” (ziran zheng qi) are extremely few: among the lowly and among plants, perhaps only pine and cypress; among the lofty and among people, only the sage. So whatever is not upright or not straight tends to turn toward what is upright. If all things were wholly green and wholly upright, pine and cypress would not be specially honored; if every person were upright on their own, no one would admire the great sage and flock to follow.

(This segment connects to the earlier “Wang Tai gathers the multitude—the principle is the same”: it stresses special endowment and the natural, not deliberate crowd-gathering or deliberate sainthood.)

Commentary

Humans receive the qi of the three talents—Heaven, Earth, and Humanity—and receive their mandate from Heaven. Round of head and square of foot, they belong among the multitude of living beings of the same kind. As for standing upright in correct qi and guarding the true original, Yu Shou alone is taken as the model—not by forcing the mind on purpose, but by letting things follow their nature. Wang Tai, who merged with the great Dao, follows the same principle.

Guo Xiang’s note on “only pines and cypresses are ‘lower head’; only sages are ‘upper head’”: the human head is on top—separated from what is above, one dies; the tree’s head is below (roots below)—separated from what is below, it dies. Hence humans are called “upper head” and trees “lower head.” “Upper head” feeds on “side head”; “side head” feeds on “lower head.” “Lower head” means plants; “side head” means insects and beasts—this is the order of the food chain.

Note [5]

It is only that one can be upright in oneself—not that one becomes upright in order to “correct others.”

Commentary

Receiving Heaven’s qi, one can be upright in oneself and thereby give rise to the Dao—not by strained intent, but fortunately by following nature. Able both to rectify oneself and to rectify things: benefiting oneself and benefiting others, inner and outer virtue complete—only then is one called a great sage. Yu Shou is so; Wang Tai likewise. Yu Shou is famous for yielding the throne, so he is often used as the measure.

Note [6]

It is not that one can cast off fame yet have nothing one is answerable for.

Commentary

“Zheng” here has the sense of accomplishment and trustworthiness. The Son of Heaven has six armies; each feudal lord has three—together called the “nine armies.” Some by nature are bold and martial, keeping a mind of good beginning and integrity through to the end, inwardly unafraid and outwardly fierce, charging straight through the nine armies for name and rank—yet still able to suppress selfish desire and court reputation, forgetting death and clinging to life. How much more so Wang Tai! The way he embodied the Dao is described below.

Textual notes

“Bao shi zhi zheng”: Li Yun reads zheng as cheng (accomplishment)—beginning and end can be kept to their completion. “Nine armies”: Cui’s and Li’s texts read “six,” explaining that the Son of Heaven has six armies and feudal lords three each, nine in all; the abbreviated text says military texts speak of attacking the nine heavens and securing the nine lands, hence “nine armies.” “Zi yao”: one reading yao with the distant tone (yáo).

[7] [Note]

“Obscure oneness” (mingran) means being a perfectly unified whole, indistinguishable from the myriad things; “nothing is not embodied” (wubu ti) means that nothing falls outside this whole.

[7] [Commentary]

Upholding and ordering heaven and earth—the two poles—is called “taking heaven and earth as one’s office”; embracing the cosmos is called “housing the ten thousand things.” A warrior who enters the battle line seeks nothing more than reputation and rank, yet can disregard body and life and forget life and death. How much more so for one who takes heaven and earth as office and office, blends with the ten thousand things, and treats death as life—is that not only natural?

[8] [Note]

This is what is meant by the “inn” (nüli)—a guest house, a place of temporary lodging.

[8] [Commentary]

“To lodge” (yu) means to dwell temporarily; the “six limbs” (liu hai) refer to the head, trunk, and four limbs. Wang Tai, seeing that the single body is not ultimately real and realizing that all existence is truly such, could blend with the dusty world and lodge his spirit within the physical form—merely a temporary stay. How could he be bound by the flesh?

[Textual note]

On “Six Limbs” (Liu hai): Cui Yan says it denotes the hands, feet, head, and body.

[9] [Note]

When ordinary people use their ears and eyes, he too seems to use ears and eyes, yet he is not truly dependent on them.

[9] [Commentary]

“Resemblance” (xiang) means likeness. Harmonizing with light and mixing with dust, he appears to use ears and eyes, but in fact he need not rely on them at all.

[10] [Note]

When knowledge moves together with transformation, there is nowhere that is not obscurely united—this is the aspect of “knowing.” When the heart accords with death and life, there is no moment that is not “life”—this is the heart’s never having truly died.

[10] [Commentary]

In “unified knowing,” “knowing” is wisdom; “what is known” is the object or realm confronted. The wisdom that can know illuminates the realm that is known; object and wisdom merge in obscurity, with no gap between faculty and object, so knowing and not-knowing interpenetrate and become one. Though outward traces follow principle and things follow change, the heart has never truly seen “death”—how could it grow utterly withered in between?

[11] [Note]

Such a person only “chooses” in the sense of not failing to attain mutual penetration; in truth he does not choose at all, but follows heaven’s sequence and responds as the times require. Hence he is called a “borrowed person” (jiajie zhi ren)—one who temporarily lodges in borrowed form.

[11] [Commentary]

(This commentary continues the preceding passage: not clinging to choice, following heaven and responding to the moment; the bodily form is borrowed, not the true self.)