《南華真經義海纂微》Vol. 17

Zi Sanghu, Meng Zifan, and Zi Qinzhang became friends with one another. They said: “Who can be friends without the usual grounds for friendship, and act without treating action as something fixed? Who can climb to the heavens, wander in the mist, roam in the boundless, forget one another yet remain together, and not know where life ends?” The three looked at one another and smiled, their hearts in accord, and thus they became friends.

After some time Zi Sanghu died, and he had not yet been buried. When Confucius heard of it, he sent Zigong to offer condolences. Among Zi Sanghu’s friends, some composed a tune and some played the zither; they sang back and forth in response: “Ah, Sanghu! Ah, Sanghu! You have returned to what is truly so, while we remain among the living, still human!” Zigong stepped forward quickly and asked: “Is it proper to sing facing the corpse?” The two looked at each other and smiled. “Where would you understand the real meaning of propriety?” they said.

Zigong returned and told Confucius. He said: “What sort of men are they? They cultivate mind and body yet do not hold to fixed norms; they treat the bodily form as something outside themselves. Facing the corpse they sing, and their faces do not change. I truly do not know what to call them. What kind of people are they?”

Confucius said: “They are ones who roam outside the bounds of worldly convention; I roam within those bounds. The paths of inside and outside do not meet—sending you to mourn was my own narrow-mindedness. They keep company with the power that transforms and nurtures all things, roaming together in the single breath of vital energy between heaven and earth. To them, living is like an extra lump of flesh or a hanging growth on the body; dying is like a boil breaking or a tumor dispersing. Given that, how could they care about the difference between life and death, or between what comes first and what comes after? They lodge in different bodily forms yet entrust themselves to one shared root; they forget liver and gall, cast off ears and eyes, turning and returning amid beginning and end without knowing starting point or border. They wander in bewilderment beyond the dusty world, at ease in the realm of Wuwei (non-action). Why would they fret over worldly ritual to perform for the crowd?”

Zigong said: “Then which path do you, Master, follow?”

Confucius said: “I am bound by heaven’s mandate to the constraints of the world. Even so, you and I can still taste that path together.”

Zigong said: “May I ask what that path is?”

Confucius said: “Fish depend on one another in water; people in the human world associate with one another by following the Dao (the Way). For fish that depend on one another in water, digging a pond is enough for them to thrive. For people who associate by the Way, when they are not dragged about by affairs of the world, life can be settled. Thus it is said: fish in rivers and lakes forget one another; people in the human world, acting by the Way, forget one another in the same way.”

Zigong asked again: “May I ask what is meant by ‘jiren’—those who depart from the usual pattern of the world?”

This passage elucidates the Daoist concept of "unity between heaven and humanity." Those whose behavior appears eccentric to ordinary people (畸于人) are in fact aligned with the heavenly Dao (侔于天). What worldly society considers a noble person might be deemed petty by cosmic principles, while those labeled as vulgar by conventional standards could be the true sages who embody the Dao.

Guo Xiang's commentary explains: Those genuinely united with heaven and earth maintain perfect harmony among their bodily components (百节同和) despite their apparent independence. This harmony isn't achieved through deliberate effort but emerges spontaneously from unconscious alignment (相与于无相与). Conscious attempts to control the body would only create disharmony between internal and external states.

Those who comprehend this principle transcend concerns of life and death, flowing with natural transformations. They perceive the essence of familial bonds without attachment (无爱念之情), capable of conventional mourning during funerals (方内之事) while simultaneously maintaining transcendent equanimity (方外之志). True understanding of ritual's essence manifests through cultivating inner refinement by transcending worldly conventions (游外以经内), as naturally as a mother protects her child (守母以存子). Being constrained by reputation and emotional attachments leads to artificiality, breeding deception even among kin.

Life and death resemble the gathering and dispersion of Qi (气之时聚/气之自散) - both are natural transformations. Understanding this allows detachment from physical organs (忘肝胆遗耳目), recognizing them as temporary vessels of dust (尘垢). The truly liberated (游外者) paradoxically live most authentically, while those who seem to withdraw from society (离人者) engage with it most profoundly. Like rulers who possess the world without being burdened by it, their minds remain free though physically constrained by worldly circumstances.

The passage concludes by observing that though humans and fish differ in form, both follow the principle of "governing through non-action (无为而治)." Achieving inner harmony through transcendence (自方外以共内) brings natural stability and fulfillment. Letting all things follow their spontaneous course (任万物之自然) fulfills the way of true sovereignty. This is the state of being seemingly incompatible with worldly norms (畸于人) while perfectly attuned to cosmic principles (侔于天).

From the perspective of nature, people are not ranked as greater or lesser; yet from the standpoint of how one lives and conducts oneself in the world, only someone who can align with the Way of Heaven may be called a true exemplar.

Master Lü comments: dwelling together without deliberately forging ties, acting without deliberately striving to achieve—this is where one returns to the root and recovers one’s original nature. Ascending to the realm of heaven, one roams in radiance above; entering mist and haze, one arrives at the gate of the deep and remote. Going back and forth thus, without bounds and without end.

Those who take returning to authenticity as joy will sing facing a corpse—precisely what they regard as fitting. The ancient kings instituted ritual in order to harmonize human likes and dislikes and to bring people back to the proper path of humanity. Then is taking return to authenticity as joy not also the inner intent of ritual?

Those who roam outside the bounds of worldly convention keep company with the Way of Heaven; therefore they treat death as something to rejoice in and feel nothing worth grieving over. Those who live within worldly convention keep company with fellow humans; therefore when they see death they grieve and dare not take it as joy. If companions like those three are present and people rejoice at death, they will be turned away from grief over death and forget to cherish life; if such people are absent, people remain entangled between life and death, unable to free themselves—and this too is what the perfected person (zhiren) pities. When inner aims differ, they cannot understand one another.

Confucius sent Zigong to offer condolences so that he might see that the meaning of ritual does not contradict the truth of life and death; the subtlest principles in the world are not all contained within ritual law. Roaming in the single breath of heaven and earth, one no longer splits Yin and Yang: treating life as a superfluous growth is to bear living as a burden; treating death as a boil bursting and pus draining is to welcome death as release with glad acceptance.

Relying on different outer things while lodging in one and the same body, one will not take the body as something real and unchanging; forgetting and letting go of liver, gall, ears, and eyes, one will look lightly on the revolving cycle of life and death, not knowing its starting point or boundary. How could such a person be bound by worldly ritual?

Confucius said he lived within worldly convention yet praised the realm outside it with all his strength. Zigong therefore doubted: though Confucius stood within the world, what his heart relied on might lie outside convention. What he occupied outwardly was mere traces; inwardly he rested on something else. “Heaven’s punished subjects” (tian zhi lümin) means those under heaven’s penalty who seem unable to escape. Someone like Confucius, able to realize nature, hold fast to spirit, and roam in the world—what outer thing could burden his heart? Thus he could stand within the world without having to leave it; he could calmly bear what is called heaven’s punishment without needing to remove it.

This is not a truth only you and I can grasp. Confucius also used fish as a simile: digging a pool to keep fish and nourish them does not necessarily require a great river.

To act and yet settle into stillness, one need not withdraw from the world. People in the rivers and lakes who forget one another are not merely because they chisel ponds to fish; those who forget one another on the path of Dao (the practice and application of the Way) are not only because they have nothing to do. When human beings align with Heaven, they can transcend the split between inner and outer. The phrase “Heaven’s petty person, humanity’s gentleman” refers to those who cling to ritual and propriety yet do not understand the truth of xingming (nature and life).

Lin Xiyi’s note: There is a way of relating without concrete affairs between them; hearts respond to each other without leaving traces of deliberate action. Ascending to wander in mist is reaching the utmost of emptiness and stillness. “Nao tiao” means turning freely with the transformations of zaohua (creation and transformation). “Forgetting one another while living” means not clinging to life and not being bound by the end of birth and death—so one has not truly died. “Weaving curtains” is only ordinary work of weaving; these people have already returned to authenticity. I still remain in the human world, hence the sigh. Zigong found it strange and asked; the two saw that Zigong did not grasp the depth of ritual and smiled at each other. Cultivating one’s own de (virtue/power) without being constrained by ritual; forgetting the body and treating birth and death as one—their Way cannot be measured and cannot be put into words. Kongzi (Confucius) said: “They wander outside the norms of the world; you wander within them.” Ritual outside the world values spirit; ritual within the world values form. Inner and outer situations differ, so they cannot influence each other.

Xiangdao’s note: The physical form is what zaohua shapes; xingming is what zaohua bestows. If one cannot accord with the physical form, one cannot avoid being constrained; if one cannot accord with xingming…

One cannot help grieving when someone is failing and near death; yet Ziji regarded the body’s transformations as conforming to physical form, while Zilai regarded life and death as conforming to Heaven’s mandate. Though their formulations differ, they agreed that wuwei is the root, life is the backbone, and death is the rump.

Still, conforming to physical form does not necessarily mean truly forgetting the body; conforming to Heaven’s mandate does not necessarily mean truly forgetting life and death. Like the three friends of Zisang Hu, they rose above the dusty world as if mounting clouds and mist and roaming in boundlessness—that is forgetting the body; singing before the corpse without a change of expression—that is forgetting life and death. Forgetting the body, they no longer clung to heart and liver, and cast aside the awareness that eyes and ears bring; forgetting life and death, they no longer pressed the question of birth and death’s beginning and end, not knowing where it starts or where it stops. This is the way of those who transcend the secular world.

Confucius, by contrast, settled comfortably within the secular world: he did not refuse the hardships Heaven’s mandate imposed, nor did he flee them. He could live at ease in non-action without having to stand outside society to be happy. It is like fish swimming in a pond—where there is water to sustain them, they are content; they need not wait for rivers and lakes to be free. From the perspective of the Dao, who can cleanly divide whether petty people fall short of gentlemen or gentlemen fall short of petty people? If one measures gentlemen and petty people by whether they accord with Heaven’s way, those three were merely more worthy than petty people who still accord with Heaven’s mandate. The sage can merge self and things into one and be at ease wherever they are—why insist on whether human and Heaven match?

Bixu (a Daoist commentator) said: Not leaning on others is aligning oneself with the great Dao; not forcing action is wuwei that arises of itself. Aligning with the great Dao is self-adjustment; acting in accord with nature is wuwei. Such are friends who forget each other. They lift themselves and travel far, leaving the world behind; they can set aside external turmoil and roam without limit, and so forget each other in life and death, unconstrained by end or exhaustion.

When Zisang Hu’s friends composed a tune, sang, and played in harmony, it was not for the dead; they meant to sigh thereby and awaken the crowd. Weeping and stamping the feet are the form of ritual; facing life and death with calm is ritual’s intent. Cultivation has no fixed outward show and no verbal trace that pins it down exactly; hence it is hard to define, and one cannot say for sure whether such a person counts as a gentleman.

Those who transcend the world grasp a subtle inner purport; those who remain in the world follow a rough outer form. Those several were about to roam the void with the changes of all things, no different from chaos, wholly one; they took birth and death as the rise and fall of bubbles on water—could that be rain from Heaven made on purpose? It is only things of the five phases temporarily gathering, lodged in the one body fashioned by creation. Once form has dispersed, they forget heart and liver; once clever perception is discarded, they no longer rely on eyes and ears. From emptiness they come and return to silence; mixed among the vulgar yet unstained, they attain the aim of transcending the world—why would they be bound by elaborate, showy rites for others to see? The person of penetration takes themselves as home.

People chase fame, profit, and achievement, and they even treat following in the footsteps left by sages as a kind of humiliation; so although sages may differ in aspiration, in how they meet the outer world there is no real divide. When fish obtain water, they forget that they are tossed in the same waves; when people obtain the Dao (the Way), they forget that they walk the same world together. That is because fish are kept in carved pools and each receives its keep, so it can be free of care and preserve life. Follow innate nature and one forgets ritual and law; drill only in ritual and law and one loses innate nature. Those who treat natural endowment as small are what the vulgar call gentlemen; those who take ritual propriety as the mark of a gentleman become, in terms of nature, petty men. One who could hold both together was perhaps Wu Mengsun alone.

Zhao’s note: When people relate with no deliberate mind and reach a state with no fixed end, that is the path of the divine person of Mount Guye (Guye shenren)—the ideal figure in the Zhuangzi who is not bound by the secular world. The previous chapter spoke only of being able to equalize life and death; here a further step is raised: a realm that is neither death nor life. Zi Fan and Qin Zhang played and sang, taking return to the authentic as joy, and laughed that Zi Gong did not understand the root of ritual. Confucius saw the Dao they held and explained the wonder of forgetting liver and gall, ears and eyes. Zi Gong then asked Confucius: “Master, will you follow the path outside convention or the path within?” Confucius answered: “You and I are both bound by ritual and law—punishment decreed by Heaven, with no release.”

Carving pools to raise fish satisfies the fish’s need to dwell in water; non-action (Wuwei) that preserves life lets the person rest in the Dao. Fish cannot leave water, people cannot leave the Dao—that is life within convention (fangnei); fish in rivers and lakes forget one another, people in the art of the Dao forget one another—that is roaming outside convention (fangwai). The so-called “unconventional person” (qiren)—one who differs from worldly people yet accords with Heaven—does not align with others but aligns with Heaven. Heaven’s way is authentic; the human way is artificial; that is the distinction.

Yue Zhai said: People meet one another with no deliberate mind and dwell together in non-action (Wuwei); “ascending to wander in mist, bending and stretching without limit” speaks of roaming beyond things; “forgetting one another in life, with no final end” means neither forgetting where life begins nor clinging to where life ends. Talk of “going to wait on affairs” resembles the story of Yuan Huai mending the coffin; “weaving mats” means weaving bamboo mats and screens. “Return to the authentic” is return to the beginning; “the meaning of ritual” is the root of ritual. Some hold these are Zhuangzi’s allegories; yet the Book of Rites also records Yuan Huai and the song “Li Shou,” so from antiquity there have been such people who keep away from the world—not only after learning the Dao. “Cultivating conduct that has no ‘having’” does not mean having no virtue; to be “companions with the work of creation” (zaohua) is to befriend transformation and roam in the shared primordial Qi (vital energy) of Heaven and Earth.

The original state of all things was like wen (superfluous growths), abscesses, and poisonous sores on the body—a metaphor for the human body as merely something extra that has arisen between heaven and earth. People always want to cut such things away and break them open before they feel at ease; that is what it means to treat life as toil and death as rest.

The body is only a temporary formation that borrows from external things, like the coming together of the four elements—earth, water, fire, and wind, the basic factors the ancients used to explain how the body is made. Life runs from start to finish through repeated change, yet people do not know its beginning or its ultimate ground. Given that, why be restless and uneasy? In carefree wandering, where could one not be at ease?

Zigong asked Confucius, “What you follow—is it the rationale within the secular world, or the rationale beyond it?” The phrase “one punished by Heaven” (tian zhi lümin) means someone under Heaven’s penal affliction who cannot break free; such a person cannot become one who transcends the secular world. What that man wished to discuss with Zigong was the joy that lies beyond the secular world.

Dig a pond and raise fish—that is already enough for self-sufficiency. The point is that once you have water, you need not fuss over how much; once you have attained the Dao (the Way), you simply live according to each person’s endowed capacity. Human judgment and Heaven’s judgment often run opposite: someone Heaven would call a noble person (junzi) the world may treat as petty, and someone the world calls noble Heaven may also see as petty.

The “noble person” of whom Zhuangzi speaks carries a note of satire toward the sagely and worthy. He holds that ritual and music, as well as laws and standards, do not spring from natural disposition; only when one smashes measures and scales so the people cease contending does one count as the noble person acknowledged by the Way of Heaven. Such language, too, grows excessively harsh from indignation at the world and rejection of heterodoxy.

They associate without deliberately seeking association; dwelling in plainness, their bond can take shape. They act without clinging to action; inner stillness, and virtue is thereby accomplished. Rising to wander in mist, they are not constrained by flight; living while forgetting one another, they no longer notice the body. Transcending the world in unfettered ease—where would be an end?

A shared glance and a smile, and minds already communicate; without words, a single look can grasp the Dao. This is not the shallow later custom of confiding face to face while ridiculing behind the back. After Zisang Hu died, Confucius sent Zigong to attend to the funeral rites—from this one can see what sort of man Zisang Hu was. The two friends played zither and sang in harmony, taking return to authentic reality as joy—their aim was likewise extraordinary.

Zigong was versed in ritual and letters, so he naturally found it strange and asked. The deep meaning of ritual is understood only by those who transcend the secular world. Confucius did not fail to understand this; he sent Zigong to witness it in order to draw out his question and then take the occasion to instruct him.

Merging with the creative transformation of nature and roaming in the primordial qi of heaven and earth, one no longer treats Yin-Yang transformation as two opposed things. Therefore one regards life as a wen and lets it cling for a time; one regards death as a poisonous sore and in the end lets it burst and disperse. How then could one know what comes first…

What comes after that? A person merely borrows the four great elements (earth, water, fire, and wind—the basic constituents of body and mind) to form a body for a while; inner and outer blend into one, and even such distinctions are forgotten. Moving back and forth between birth and death, beginning and end, one does not know where they start or where they stop. This is what it means to become a “great master who embodies the Dao” (datong daszongshi—a teacher who has penetrated the great Way and is fit to be master to all things).

Zigong asked again: “What do you rely on, Master?” Confucius said: “You use benevolence, righteousness, rites, and music to transform the multitude—are these not fetters that the creator of things has placed on people? You and I are caught in them; in speech and action, what can truly escape?”

Fish live by water; humans live by the Dao (the Way). Fish accustomed to water need only a pond carved out to settle; those at home in the Dao need not act rashly and their spirit-mind (shen) finds its own steadiness. This means that those who dwell within the human world simply rest within the human world. As for forgetting one another between rivers and lakes, or roaming at ease in the arts of the Dao—that is a figure for wandering outside the secular world, unbound by worldly rites and law. Thus, faced with the shifts of life and death, one can remain composed and unafraid.

When Zigong heard this teaching of transcending the secular, he asked what sort of person the “extraordinary person” (jiren—one whose conduct diverges from the common) was. The answer was: “One who differs from ordinary people is precisely one who accords with Heaven’s Dao.” That is to say, to go against the views of the world is not necessarily to go against the great Dao. From this we can see that someone Heaven’s Dao would call petty may be the gentleman in the world’s eyes; and the gentleman in the world’s eyes may be the one Heaven’s Dao sees as turning away from the Way. The two remarks really express one point: “extraordinary” and “aligned” (qi and mou—different versus in accord) are spoken from two standpoints—that of Heaven’s Dao and that of human society.

Yan Hui asked Confucius: “When Meng Sun Cai’s mother died, he wept but had no tears, felt no grief in his heart, and in mourning showed no sorrow on his face. He lacked these three signs yet handled the funeral well. Can there really be someone in Lu whose name does not match his reality? I find this very strange.”

Confucius said: “Meng Sun Cai has already gone to the utmost; he has entered the realm of thorough penetration. He simply treats birth and death as straightforward—not because he has deliberately chosen some fixed stance. Meng Sun Cai does not know where life comes from, nor where death goes; he does not know how to welcome what comes before him, nor how to await what changes later. He only follows transformation and becomes one with the myriad things, waiting for a change he has not yet understood. Besides, change is underway right now—how can we know it will not change again? What seems unchanged now—how can we know it has not already changed? Only you and I, perhaps, are still as in a dream and have not truly awakened.

“Though his body undergoes startling change, his inner mind is not harmed; while alive he treats the body as a temporary lodging, and in death he is not dragged about by emotion. When Meng Sun Cai sees others weep, he weeps along with them—that is a natural response from his inborn nature. We call one another ‘I,’ but that is only a provisional label; how can I know that the ‘I’ I speak of is really a fixed, unchanging I?

“You dream you have become a bird and soar into the sky; you dream you have become a fish and dive into the deep. You do not know whether the self that speaks now is awake or still dreaming.”

Those who can accord with transformation, when they see people who smile as they send off the dead, feel that such conduct still falls short: they do not deliberately reject or arrange things, but depart along with change, and in the end enter the silent, formless realm and become one with the Dao.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: To thoroughly understand the principle of life and death, and to have both inner mind and outer circumstance settled—acting in accord with the natural Dao is not something knowledge and deliberation can achieve. To treat life and death as separate is still not to grasp that they have no essential difference: it is like spring, autumn, winter, and summer revolving in turn, each with its own ease. To merge with transformation as one is to forget the knowledge used for distinction and judgment. Since one can be at ease with whatever is before one, why must one rely on knowledge and worry in advance over what has not yet happened?

A person has already undergone transformation and been born—how could they know what it was like before they were born? They are undergoing transformation and dying—how could they know what it is like after death? People now dwell in a dream yet think themselves awake; they cannot prove that so-called wakefulness is certainly not a dream, or that so-called life is certainly unlike death. Regarding life and death, wakefulness and dreaming, people do not know where they truly stand; yet whatever they meet, they can find their ease—why need they worry about one state of affairs only for the sake of another?

To regard the transformation of the body as the body being stirred, and not let it harm or burden the mind; to regard the body as a temporary dwelling, renewed day by day, and thus not take it as real death—the truly clear-minded person, wherever they arrive, feels no obstruction. Therefore when others weep, they weep too: that is what is fitting for the moment. Life, death, and change, in my view, all return to the one; inner and outer transform and renew daily—how then fix where “I” truly is?

In a dream one becomes a bird or a fish; wherever one goes, one is at ease. The changes of life and death are likewise moments not worth excessive regret. Whatever one meets is just as it should be, so one need not use laughter to show approval, nor use rejection to resist change. “排” (pai) carries the sense of shifting and yielding to transformation. By ritual custom, at a funeral one should weep with grief; when offering a smile, one should show joy. If the heart clings to sorrow or delight, one cannot act at ease as circumstances change. Meng Sun Shi was always at ease with change and went forward with it; hence he entered the silent, formless realm and became one with the Dao.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Only one who understands that things are not fixedly existent will not treat inner and outer, life and death, as utterly different matters. Why must one leave the ordinary world to wander “outside” it, or even take death as joy until one sings beside a corpse?

Thus in mourning he wept as usual—outwardly the same as others, yet inwardly not dragged down by grief; in that inner respect he differed from the crowd. The book uses Meng Sun Shi to show that those of the highest attainment do not depart from ordinary human feeling. While alive they lived as usual; when dead they faced death as usual; they wept as usual. Though one might wish to split life and death apart, they cannot truly be severed.

Those three men did not know what state life and death or preservation and loss were in, yet they treated birth as loss and death as return—that cannot be called complete ignorance of the principle of life and death. They took return to the genuine as joy and human conduct as lament—that cannot be called having no ….

Later, Mengsun Shi did not know where life came from or where death was going; therefore, he had nothing to lose in life and nothing to return to in death. He clung neither to what came before nor to what came after; he neither found death worth envying nor life worth lamenting. Moreover, as people change and become the myriad things, they must wait for transformations that cannot be known; those who are changing do not know that they are changing. If one is about to change, how can one know that one will not change? If one is in a state of not changing, how can one know that one has already changed? Then, you and I now—might we still be in a dream and not yet awake?

Though Mengsun Shi had a human form and his body could be startled, his heart was not shaken; thus when the body was harmed, the inner self was not harmed. He regarded life and death like the alternation of night and dawn: the body is a temporary dwelling, and human consciousness is not eternally fixed; when the body dies, consciousness disperses with it. This is where Mengsun Shi was especially penetrating. Because he understood this, when others wept, he wept along with them, yet without tears and without grief. This was because he knew things were simply thus and not worth being startled by.

Besides, when you dream you have become a bird or a fish, you also do not know you are dreaming. Then how can we be sure whether what we call waking now is waking or dreaming? From this perspective, Mengsun Shi forgot the self and reached a distinctive awakening. He laughed in accord with the moment; laughter arose naturally, not from deliberately seeking joy, so one cannot yet speak of “pursuing laughter.” He laughed to release sorrow, not to enjoy the sound of laughter, so one cannot speak of “releasing” in that sense either. What “releasing” means is sending sorrow away; since Mengsun Shi had forgotten life and death, one cannot say he was deliberately releasing or pursuing anything.

Accord with what is arranged—that is not forcing action. Releasing change means understanding that change cannot be resisted and therefore going along with it. When the mind is empty and still, nothing blocks it; when one follows Heaven’s principle, one does not act artificially; when one returns to oneness, one does not fall into duality. The principle is exhausted here.

Yidu’s note: Ordinary people know there is life but do not know there is death; Mengsun Shi understood what others did not, so it is said he went further in understanding. Whether one rests in life or rests in death, what is there to choose? What Mengsun Shi did not take up was clinging to life and death as distinct and thereby avoiding or chasing them. When change comes it cannot be refused; when it departs it cannot be held back. Forget clinging and wait for it; when the time comes, respond in accord. Only by understanding the principle of life and death can one avoid being shifted by change.

Therefore: when one is about to change, how can one know one will not change? When one is in a state of not changing, how can one know one has already changed? Whatever is tied to the world is like being in a dream; when one awakens, life and death cannot trouble the self—how much less the rites and laws of the world? When Mengsun Shi’s mother died, seeing others startled, he too appeared startled, yet his inner self was not harmed…

The physical form belongs to what Yang generates; it can be likened to a dwelling-house. Ordinary people follow emotion and cling to the form, so emotion and form die together. The perfected person (zhiren) knows the form is not truly one’s own and treats it as a temporary “morning dwelling” (danzhai)—a lodge for a brief stay—so though the form perishes, emotion does not perish with it.

Master Sun Meng could shed worldly entanglements and grasp this alone, hence he was called “tejue”—uniquely and ahead in awakening.

In Shuowen Jiezi, “shuo” (weeping) is written with a form suggesting breath forced out in distress. Master Sun Meng wept not from the heart; he only saw others weep and wept along. That is precisely what is hard to do. My life and death, in whatever circumstance, are like a dream: dreaming one has become a bird or a fish, one rests at ease in whatever one meets. People do not know—are those who talk now awake while talking about dreams, or talking in a dream? They have probably not yet penetrated the principle of death and life; even if they think themselves awake, they are still in a dream. When one truly awakens, there is no longer any divide between waking and dreaming.

To feel at ease by following circumstances is natural; to force oneself to feel at ease is not true joy and will not bring laughter. When the heart is not joyful yet one laughs for others’ sake, that is “offered laughter” (xianxiao). “Pai” means to shift and follow the transformations of zaohua (creating-and-transforming). Only one who can rest at ease in whatever comes can find joy in that ease and then laugh; and then laughter too shifts with zaohua. Therefore the perfected person calmly accepts the shifting changes of all things, forgets the distinctions change brings, and enters a vast, empty stillness, becoming one with Heaven.

Xiangdao commentary: Master Sun Meng was adept at funerals because he had realized the Dao; Yan Hui reproached him from emotion. Master Sun Meng simply saw matters in brief purity; if he still chose and rejected, what he chose was only the Dao. How could he still care about the difference between death and life, before and after?

Clinging to the form and being dragged by life is ordinary emotion. If one can face startling changes of the form without inner harm, one does not cling to the form; if one knows the form is only a temporary dwelling and does not take emotion as dying with the form, one is not dragged by life. Then one can follow whatever happens outwardly without resisting; so when others weep, one weeps too. Resting at ease in one’s own situation without worry, one may weep yet not grieve.

Ease comes from inner peace; laughter comes from inner joy. Forcing ease does not truly laugh; laughing only for others, one cannot push away or exclude outer pull. Master Sun Meng had no real grief or joy in the heart; others wept, so he wept—that is “offered laughter.” That he was not truly grieved is nothing strange. He calmly accepted the shifting of all things without inner harm; shed the drag of change and did not treat the form’s death as emotion’s death, and thus entered the far-reaching realm and became one with Heaven.

Bixu commentary: Weeping and mourning are rites for serving the dead; lack of tears does not mean lack of grief. One who penetrates the principle of death can fulfill these rites and still advance to the realm of knowing. As for death and life…

Things always exist through change, so nothing can be easily set aside; even if one sets aside the distinction between life and death, one has not yet truly escaped weeping and mourning.

People always have preferences and aversions, acceptance and rejection—this is human nature. Once we have a body, we change with external things; having already been affected by externals, we can only go along with change. If we are about to change, how do we know that after death, entering the realm of emptiness and stillness, we will not again become human? If we do not change now, how do we know that living is only a brief moment, soon to be lost? The body migrates with change, so the body is startled by change; if the mind is united with emptiness and stillness, it is not harmed. The body is merely the dwelling where spirit resides: live here today, and one should tend it; move elsewhere tomorrow, and it becomes something discarded. Only those who penetrate change can follow change and endure, and therefore do not treat death as a true end.

The character for “weep” (ku) in the*Shuowen Jiezi* is explained as the appearance of breath forced out in difficulty—showing that forgetting sorrow and stopping tears is not easy. Life is part of me, death is part of me; thus both are said to accompany me. The perfected person (zhiren)—in Daoist terms, one who has reached a lofty state—has no fixed self; what is not a “dream” that I undergo? Becoming fish and birds, soaring in the sky or sinking into the deep, is no more than this. People have long been confused about life and death, waking and dreaming. They do not know that those in a brief life may not truly be awake; those who transcend the limits of form are no longer bound by the distinction between life and death.

Deliberately manufacturing joy is inferior to laughing naturally; deliberately putting on a smile is inferior to letting things shift without clinging. Meng Sunshi peacefully accepted the shifting of things, did not grieve over departure and change, and thus entered a boundless realm of emptiness, blending with the dark and silent Dao.

Zhao’s commentary says: When Meng Sunshi’s mother died, though he was not sorrowful, he properly conducted the funeral, and therefore became known for skill in managing burial rites. Confucius held that Meng Sunshi had fully understood the principle of life and death and reached the realm of knowing principle; yet he still could not avoid mourning, could not avoid weeping—this is what is meant by “wanting to omit weeping but being unable to.” Nevertheless, he was not distressed and not grief-stricken; he had already omitted inner anguish.

People do not know what the order of life and death really is. Filial devotion to one’s mother—serving her while she lived, arranging the funeral after she died—is one and the same matter. “Changing into another thing” means one has already changed into another form; as for no longer being born and no longer changing, people do not know. Must one wait until one has changed together with those unknown states before it is finished? What changes is the bodily form; what does not change is not the bodily form—how can what changes and what does not change recognize each other?

The bodily form may be startled, but the mind is not harmed; the body is like a lodging for the morning, yet one need not treat death as an end within the mind. This is having a human form without the clinging emotions of ordinary people. Confucius said “You and I have not yet awakened,” referring to Confucius and Yan Hui; Meng Sunshi had already awakened. When others wept, he wept too, yet did not understand why—this was only conforming to present custom, not true insight.

Day is life; night is death. Ordinary people take life to be the “self,” yet they do not see that life is only the morning that follows night. The “self” I mean is what runs through past and present and is always there. When you dream you have become a fish or a bird, you do not know you are dreaming; can those who talk about dreams now really be more awake than people inside a dream?

Someone who goes along with the changes of things can be at ease in any situation, so there is no need to force a laugh. Those who laugh because something outside stirs them are only glad when the moment moves them—they still fall short of those who follow nature. If you quietly accept what the Creator (the power that makes and drives the changes of all things) sets in place, you can step outside the round of endless birth and change, enter a high and open realm, and keep company with the Way of Heaven.

Yan Zhai (the commentator’s style name) says: only by steadily deepening in understanding do you gradually come to know the Dao. Wanting to simplify things does not mean you can always do it. In mourning, people weep; even if you want to leave that out, you cannot—yet what you actually do may already be quite spare. People do not see that life and death, before and after, are only a turning cycle; they do not know where the changes of the myriad things begin or end. They can only follow creation-and-transformation and become one thing among others, and wait for changes they cannot foresee. If you truly let nature take its course, how can you tell whether you are about to change, have already changed, or have not changed yet?

Those who know the Dao may find me odd—that is because my dream is not over. The body shifts from youth to age; that can startle, but if the mind stays calm and unshaken, the inner self is not harmed. Day is life, like dwelling in the world; life and death are like night and morning. If you know life is only a temporary stay, then death is not real death. Hence “dying without [genuine] feeling”: you see others cry and cry along—only following the crowd. That is exactly the case of wanting to omit weeping and not being able to. Zhuangzi uses this to show the subtlety of being at ease with oneself: unable to skip weeping, you weep with the rest. Besides, others now find “me” strange—how could they know what the “I” I speak of really is? Zhuangzi is using vivid language to lead the reader; the reader should find a meaning of their own.

Dreaming you have become a bird or a fish matches the earlier “Zhuang Zhou dreams he is a butterfly.” Those who discuss dreams, awake or asleep, might equally be Zhuang Zhou dreaming he is a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming it is Zhuang Zhou. When the heart finds its fit, sometimes there is no room left for laughter; at the height of contentment, it simply is so. Laughing because of outer things means the outer world makes you laugh—it comes from nature; why arrange it on purpose? The hardship and ease of worldly affairs, gain and loss, are all already settled by creation-and-transformation. You need only accept that settlement in peace and go with the changes, and then you can enter “the vast oneness of Heaven” (the state of being one with the broad Way of Heaven). “The vast oneness of Heaven” is only a name for this realm that creation-and-transformation has made.

The previous chapter describes four men, Zi Si, Zi Yu, Zi Li, and Zi Lai, who befriended one another. Zi Yu fell ill in body yet remained untroubled in heart, and Zi Lai, on the verge of death, was not frightened in spirit. These are people who understand the principles of things and accord with change. The chapter that follows describes how, after Zi Sanghu died, two friends composed songs and played the zither, singing in harmony. These are people who have forgotten the bodily form and take joy in following transformation.

This chapter turns to the matter of mourning a mother. Mengsun wished to keep the rites simple but could not, so Mengsun wept without tears and felt no grief within. Mengsun does not know why people are born or why they die, so how could beating the chest, stamping the feet, and wailing aloud be taken as ritual propriety?

The general meaning of this chapter is that death and life are not worth finding strange. It lets people accept them calmly, follow them, and gladly forget them. In this way the living are not so overcome with sorrow that they harm themselves, and the dead are spared fear and grief. Wherever the spirit (Shen) wanders, all is harmony and joy, and so the place where it lodges and dwells will surely never fall into a violent or perverse body.

Consider the transformations of the cicada, the dragonfly, and the butterfly, and the principle can be inferred. When they are about to change but have not yet changed, they are still and silent, unaware of any distinction between "that" and "I," quietly awaiting the response of the Qi of heaven and earth. Once the Qi responds, they shed their shell here and take new form there. If, at the very moment of change, something else touches them by mistake, they become enraged and turn into a fierce kind of creature. When the heart changes within, the body follows by changing without; this is brought about by what one responds to. Although transformation comes from the Creator, we can also see that the myriad things take part in their own making. How could one not be careful about this crucial point?

Where the heart finds ease is an ease it has made for itself. Once that ease is established, true joy is preserved within, and it does not depend on laughing in order to be happy. To laugh because of an external thing is to "offer a laugh" (to present a smile passively). An offered laugh is forced, and cannot match the naturalness of going along with the pushing and arranging of things. The hardship and success of the myriad things depend on the pushing and arranging of the process of creation and transformation; human sorrow and joy depend on the pushing and arranging of whatever one meets. One who can rest in this pushing and arranging and go along with change enters a vast and profound realm, accords with nature, and merges Heaven and humanity into one, a Dao (the Way) with no duality.

This is to say that Mengsun understood fate, grasped change, followed the process of creation, and forgot the emotions, regarding death and life as night and day and lodging waking and dreaming in between them. What is there in this to stir sorrow or joy?

Someone asks: "Mengsun forgot emotion in the face of death and life and felt no grief within. That is indeed a kind of enlightenment, but applying it to a mother's funeral is to treat one's kin coldly and violate ritual. Is this not a sinner against the Teaching of Names (Confucian ritual teaching)?" The answer is: "Mengsun is a person from beyond the world's bounds (one who stands outside conventional customs and rites). Such people repay their parents through substance, not form, because within it there lies a hidden..."

This means that they repay their parents' kindness by quietly bringing about its fulfillment in secret, not through the outward display of ritual.

Those whose merit and practice run deep and secret can dissolve the fetal knot (the stagnation that binds body and spirit in cultivation), and in the end reach the wondrous state in which spirit is whole and one transcends transformation—how could they still be tied to the petty forms of worldly etiquette? Long ago, Yuan Rang, a friend of Confucius, climbed a tree and sang after his mother died; his conduct was even more improper than this. When Confucius passed by, he seemed not to hear, and in the end did not reproach him. This speaks to the difference between moving within worldly ritual and moving beyond it, and between the outward forms of ritual teaching and inner simplicity; without far-reaching insight, one is not fit to discuss such matters.