《莊子》Vol. 26

This passage from the “External Things” chapter of the Zhuangzi explores how unpredictable the world can be.

The course of external events is often hard to foresee. The loyal minister Longfeng was executed, Bi Gan was cut open, and Jizi was forced to feign madness. Even E Lai, a favorite of King Zhou, could not escape death in the end; the tyrants Jie of Xia and Zhou of Shang also met their downfall. Rulers may hope their ministers will be loyal, but loyalty does not always earn their trust. Wu Zixu’s body was cast into the river, while Chang Hong was killed in Shu. Three years later, his blood was said to have turned into green jade—a symbol of the injustice suffered by loyal ministers.

Parents may hope their children will be filial, but filial devotion does not always bring affection in return. Xiaoyi, son of King Wu Ding of Shang, was troubled by his devotion to his father, while Zeng Shen, a disciple of Confucius, endured hardship in fulfilling his filial duties. Just as friction between pieces of wood can produce fire and metal melts in a blaze, disorder in the Yin-Yang energies can disturb Heaven and Earth, bringing strange upheavals with thunder and lightning. “Fire in the water” refers to lightning striking the surface of the water; such forces could even split a great locust tree with fire.

When people cling too tightly to opposing claims—such as the gains and losses of loyalty or filial duty—they can become trapped in a predicament with no way out. Through historical examples and natural phenomena, Zhuangzi shows that outward ethical rules and the emotional rewards people receive do not always correspond. Insisting on a particular outcome can instead cost a person their inner freedom.

When a person is inwardly conflicted and cannot find peace, the heart seems to sway uncertainly, suspended between Heaven and Earth. Sorrow and frustration pile up within, while thoughts of gain and loss clash like a blazing fire. Ordinary people are often consumed by this fire of the heart, losing their inner calm—like moonlight, a metaphor for the clarity of one’s original nature, that cannot withstand the heat of a raging blaze. In time, their spirit grows listless and their vitality fades.

Zhuangzi was very poor, so he went to ask Marquis Jianhe, a local official responsible for waterways, for grain. The marquis brushed him off: “All right. Once I’ve collected the tax revenue from my fief, I’ll lend you three hundred jin of gold. Would that do?”

Zhuangzi flushed with anger and said, “On my way here yesterday, I heard someone calling out from beside the road. I turned around and saw a crucian carp in a puddle left in a wheel rut. I asked it, ‘Carp, what are you doing here?’ It replied, ‘I am a subject of the waters of the Eastern Sea.’”

Zhuangzi’s dialogue tells a striking parable.

A small crucian carp, stranded in a dried-up rut, pleaded with a passerby: “Could you give me a few pints of water to save me?” The passerby replied, “Wait until I go south and persuade the rulers of Wu and Yue to divert the great waters of the Western River here to rescue you!” The little fish flushed with anger. “I’ve lost the waters where I normally live and have nowhere to go. A bucket of water would be enough to keep me alive. Instead, you offer me empty promises. You might as well come looking for me at the salt fish stall!”

The passage then tells the story of Lord Ren, who went fishing with an enormous hook and a thick black line. He used fifty castrated oxen as bait and spent every day on Mount Kuaiji, casting his line into the Eastern Sea. For a whole year he caught nothing. At last, a great fish took the hook. It dragged the huge hook down into the depths; its fins beat up white waves like mountains, churning and shaking the sea.

These stories use exaggerated contrasts to make their point. The first mocks grand talk that does nothing to relieve an immediate crisis. The second suggests that great achievements call for great ambition and patience. Kuaiji was a famous mountain in the ancient state of Yue; Wu and Yue were rival states in the Spring and Autumn period, in the region of present-day Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

This passage tells the parable of Lord Ren fishing.

Lord Ren caught an enormous fish. Its roar sounded like spirits and gods displaying their power, and struck awe into people thousands of miles away. He cut the fish into strips and dried them, and everyone from east of Zhejiang to north of Mount Cangwu had a share.

Later, people of limited learning who relied on hearsay heard the story and passed it around in astonishment. They went with little bamboo poles to the ditches, waiting to catch small fish and shrimp. How could they ever catch a great fish? In the same way, those who use shallow words to win a reputation are far from the true Dao (the Way).

So anyone who has never heard of Lord Ren’s breadth of spirit and way of acting will find it hard to understand how to make one’s way in the world.

Lord Ren is a fictional figure created by Zhuangzi, symbolizing the bearing of one who has attained the Dao. “Great understanding” refers to reaching the state of comprehensive insight into the Dao, and “making one’s way in the world” means the art of living among others.

This parable from the Zhuangzi satirizes Confucian scholars who outwardly uphold benevolence and morality but behave with hypocrisy and greed. We can understand it in three parts.

The first part presents the absurd scene of Confucian scholars robbing a tomb. They use the rites of the Book of Odes and the Book of Rites as they rob it. Outside the tomb, their learned leader calls in to ask, “It will soon be dawn. How is the work going?”

In the second part, a junior scholar’s reply exposes their hypocrisy. From inside the tomb, he answers, “The dead man’s clothes have not yet been removed, and there’s a pearl in his mouth! Doesn’t the Book of Odes say: ‘Green, green, the wheat shoots grow on the hillside. You would not give alms while alive, so why hold a pearl in your mouth after death?’” The story then describes their work in careful detail: they hold down the dead man’s temples and jaw, strike his cheekbone with a bronze hammer, and cautiously take out the pearl, taking care not to damage it.

The third part shifts to another satirical scene. A disciple of Lao Laizi, a Daoist recluse, goes out to gather firewood and encounters Confucius (Zhongni). When he returns, he tells his master, “There’s a man over there with a short upper body and a long lower body, a slight stoop, and ears that lie close to his head. His eyes shine as if he were plotting to manage the whole world.” Through this description, the story hints at Confucius’s anxious, worldly ambition.

Someone asked, “I wonder whose student this is.” The recluse Lao Laizi replied, “This is Kong Qiu (Confucius). Call him over.”

When Confucius arrived, Lao Laizi said to him, “Kong Qiu, you must set aside your self-righteousness and your deliberate show of cleverness. Only then can you become a true gentleman.”

After hearing this, Confucius respectfully bowed and stepped back. His expression grew solemn, and he asked, “Can I still improve my cultivation?” Lao Laizi began to reply…

(Note: Lao Laizi has not yet answered; the original text breaks off here. This exchange illustrates the Daoist critique of Confucian practices such as self-importance and displaying one’s knowledge. It suggests that genuine cultivation should be natural and Wuwei (non-action).)

Zhuangzi’s passage says:

If, out of reluctance to witness the suffering of the present age, you end up bringing even greater calamity upon later generations, does that show a very limited understanding? Or did you simply fail to think about the long term? Offering small favors to win people over can instead bring lifelong disgrace. That is how ordinary people behave. People attract one another with empty reputations and form alliances for private gain. Rather than busily praising Yao and Shun while condemning Jie and Zhou, set aside judgments of good and bad and stop making such distinctions.

The sage always thinks things through before acting, and so succeeds. But why do some people keep putting on airs and then end up boasting about themselves?

The passage then tells a story: One night, Lord Yuan of Song dreamed that a long-haired person was peering in through a side gate. The person said, “I come from the deep waters of Zailu. I was sent by Qingjiang to visit the River Lord, the deity of the Yellow River, but I was caught by the fisherman Yu Qie.” After Lord Yuan awoke... (The story is unfinished.)

The story goes like this:

Someone asked a diviner to examine a turtle. The diviner said, “This is a sacred turtle.” Here, “sacred turtle” means a turtle believed to possess spiritual power; in ancient times, people thought turtles could communicate with the spirit world.

When the ruler heard this, he asked his attendants, “Is there a fisherman named Yu Qie?” They replied, “There is.” Yu Qie is a person’s name.

The ruler then ordered, “Have Yu Qie come to court tomorrow.” The next day, Yu Qie came to pay his respects.

The ruler asked him, “What did you catch while fishing?” Yu Qie replied, “I cast my net and caught a white turtle.” In ancient times, a white turtle was regarded as an auspicious creature.

This exchange reveals how people in ancient times regarded spiritually significant creatures, as well as the ruler’s interest in unusual events. Through a brief question and answer, it vividly depicts the process of discovering the sacred turtle and tracing where it came from.

This story from the Zhuangzi tells of a ruler who received a sacred tortoise five chi long. At first, he said he would offer it to a worthy person. But when the tortoise arrived, he hesitated: at one moment he wanted to kill it, and at another he wanted to set it free. Unable to decide, he consulted the oracle. The reading showed that killing the tortoise and using it for divination would bring good fortune.

So they cut open its shell and drilled seventy-two holes in it to read the cracks and determine what was auspicious or inauspicious—a method of divination used in ancient times. Each reading proved accurate.

When Confucius heard the story, he remarked: “The sacred tortoise could appear in the ruler’s dreams, yet it could not escape the fisherman Yuqie’s net. It could make all seventy-two predictions accurately, yet it could not escape being cut open. This shows that even great intelligence has its limits, and that spirits, too, have things they cannot do. Even the highest wisdom cannot overcome the combined designs of ten thousand people.”

Through the tortoise’s fate, Zhuangzi illustrates the idea that “intelligence has its constraints.” The story reflects the Daoist ideal of great wisdom that appears foolish and suggests that people should not rely too heavily on cleverness.

Fish are not afraid of fishing nets, but they are afraid of pelicans, the water birds that catch fish. They see the obvious threat before them and overlook the greater danger.

Let go of cleverness, and genuine wisdom will emerge. Deliberately pursuing goodness can cause us to lose the goodness that comes naturally. A baby, for example, has no special teacher to teach it to speak, yet it learns language naturally among people who can speak.

Hui Shi, a leading figure of the School of Names during the Warring States period, said to Zhuangzi, “Your words have no practical use.”

Zhuangzi replied, “Only when you understand the principle of ‘uselessness’ can you truly speak about what is useful. The earth is vast, but all we actually use is the ground beneath our feet. If we wanted to enlarge that patch of ground and dug away everything around it, all the way down to the Yellow Springs—the depths below the earth—where could we stand?”

Huizi said, “This thing is useless.”

Zhuangzi replied, “When something is useless, its usefulness becomes clear.” Zhuangzi points out that things which seem useless often have a value of their own. This expresses the Daoist idea of “the use of what is useless.”

Zhuangzi said:

“If someone can roam freely in spirit,

how could they fail to roam freely?

If someone cannot roam freely in spirit,

how could they truly roam?

Those who turn their minds away from the world,

and resolutely abandon it—

alas!

Is this what a person of true wisdom and deep De (Virtue/Power) should do?”

Zhuangzi criticizes those who deliberately flee from reality.

Some fall into an abyss and never turn back;

others race forward like a blazing fire, heedless of the consequences.

Though ruler and subject may seem distinct,

that distinction lasts only for a time.

When the age changes, there is no longer any difference in rank.

Thus, one who has truly attained the Dao does not cling to any fixed way of acting.

The passage from the Zhuangzi develops three main points.

The first part criticizes scholars who praise antiquity at every turn and disparage the present. They are merely bookish scholars. If we judged society today by the standards of the ancient ruler Xiwei, a legendary sage king of remote antiquity, who would not be disappointed? Only a true “Perfect Person,” the Daoist ideal of the highest cultivated person, can live freely amid the ordinary world without being swept along by it, and adapt to others without losing their own nature. They do not blindly follow other people’s teachings; they grasp the truth and are not misled by appearances.

The second part concerns the senses and understanding. When the eyes are unobstructed, there is clear sight; when the ears are unobstructed, there is keen hearing; when the nose is unobstructed, there is a keen sense of smell; when the mouth is unobstructed, it can taste what is delicious; when the mind is unobstructed, there is wisdom; and when wisdom is unobstructed, there is De (Virtue/Power). But the Dao (the Way) above all must not be blocked. Once blocked, it becomes stagnant; if stagnation continues, things fall into disorder, and disorder gives rise to all kinds of harm.

The final part adds that everything capable of perception depends on breath, understood here as the energy of life. If that breath is insufficient, Heaven is not to blame. The Qi (vital energy) of Heaven and Earth flows without pause, day and night; people themselves block their own openings—that is, their senses and minds. It is like a fetus in the womb, which from the beginning has an open passage, a clear space within the womb referred to as “chonglang.”

The mind needs room to roam freely, as boundless as the sky. When a house has no spare space, a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law may quarrel. When the mind has no room to unfold freely, the six senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and thought—clash and interfere with one another.

The second passage uses natural phenomena to show the harm caused by deliberate contrivance. Dense forests feel pleasant precisely because they retain their natural character and are not shaped by purposeful intervention. When a person’s De (Virtue/Power) goes beyond what is proper, they pursue empty fame. Great fame invites criticism; schemes arise from urgency; cleverness grows out of rivalry; stubbornness comes from clinging to the old; and success in government depends on what suits the people. When spring rain falls at the right time, plants flourish naturally, and only then do farmers begin repairing their tools. Yet the plants have already completed much of their growth on their own, and people do not know why they have thrived so well.

Stillness can help restore the body from illness, rubbing the corners of the eyes can delay aging, and calm can quiet agitation. But such methods are ultimately concerns for those who labor with their minds, not for those who wander freely. The means a sage uses to stir the world are of no concern to the Spirit Person (shenren), the one who has attained the Dao.

These two passages from the Zhuangzi describe the ways people at different levels conduct themselves, as well as broader social patterns.

The first passage says: Worthy people, those of high moral character, astonish the world because the sages, people at the highest level, never concern themselves with what the worthy do. Gentlemen, people of upright conduct, astonish their countrymen because the worthy never concern themselves with their actions. Ordinary people can go along with the times because gentlemen never concern themselves with how they behave.

The second passage tells a satirical story. In a place called Yanmen, someone was promoted to office because he grieved intensely when his parents died. “Ruining oneself through grief” means mourning to excess. His fellow townspeople began to imitate him, and half of them died from excessive grief.

The third passage recounts several stories about recluses. Yao wanted to hand over the realm to Xu You, but Xu You fled. Tang wanted to yield his position to Wuguang, who became furious. When Jita heard about this, he took his disciples and withdrew to live by the Kuanshui River. The feudal lords went to pay their respects to him. Three years later, Shentu Di heard what had happened and threw himself into the river.

These stories satirize both the deliberate pursuit of fame and the deliberate withdrawal from the world as unnatural. They express Zhuangzi’s thought of Wuwei (non-action). Xu You, Wuguang, and the others were all famous recluses of antiquity.

A bamboo fish trap is used to catch fish; once the fish is caught, the trap can be forgotten. A snare is used to catch rabbits; once a rabbit is caught, the snare can be forgotten. Words are used to convey meaning; once the meaning is understood, the words can be forgotten.

How I long to meet someone who understands the art of “forgetting words,” so that we might talk freely together!

Using the images of fishing and rabbit hunting, this passage shows that language is only a tool for conveying thought. Once the underlying meaning has been grasped, there is no need to cling to the words themselves. Zhuangzi longs for a way of communicating that goes beyond the limits of language, where understanding passes directly from mind to mind.