《南華真經註疏》Vol. 2
About this page. The original text of 《南華真經註疏》 Vol. 2 (Qing Daoist texts 清代道教文獻, 5 volumes) is shown in Classical Chinese as transmitted in the Kanripo (Kyoto University) edition. An English interpretation of the 106 passages on this page accompanies it: select a passage or press “Interpretation” to show it. All texts in English
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Source text (with commentary)Interpretation
“Taking flight in a surge” describes abruptly raising the essence and Qi in the kidneys, as if one could fly upward without wings. The Peng is a bird, and the sea is the Northern Darkness. The sea’s movement refers to the activation of Kidney Water. The words “surge,” “fly,” “move,” and “migrate” all describe how true Qi rises from below during cultivation.
The Southern Darkness is the Southern Sea. In the trigrams it corresponds to Li; in the human body, to the heart. It belongs to Fire and is associated with Mercury. The Peng’s migration to the Southern Darkness is like Kidney Water rising to unite with Heart Fire. This is called “taking Kan to fill Li”: the single Yang line in the Kan trigram fills the Li trigram. Kan changes into Li, bringing about “the union of heart and kidneys.”
The Zhouyi says, “The sage faces south and listens to the realm.” Facing south corresponds to Li. Those who cultivate the Dao should follow this model: the true Yang within the kidneys is stirred into motion, rises to the heart, and meets the spirit of the heart, like the Peng flying from the Northern Sea to the Southern Sea. This passage describes a practical method of cultivation: the union of Kan and Li, and the completion of the union of Water and Fire.
Why the Inner Chapter Is Called “Free and Easy Wandering”
“What is clear is born from the obscure; order is born from the formless.” Clear things arise from darkness, and patterns grow out of formless chaos. This is why the chapter is called “Free and Easy Wandering.” First one must look inward, leaving the mind free of distracting thoughts; look outward without taking the body as something real; and look far away at the myriad things without becoming attached to external objects. Only then can one enter the realm of free and easy wandering, like Liezi riding the wind.
Though Dao students sit quietly in a single room, their spirit can roam beyond the Six Directions and above the Nine Heavens. Once they have passed beyond the barrier of life and death, the snares of the world can no longer ensnare them. After liberation, they can pass unhindered through metal and stone and tread through water and fire unharmed. Wherever they go, is that not free and easy wandering?
In the Northern Darkness There Is a Fish Named Kun
The north belongs to Water, and the Northern Darkness is the Northern Sea. In the trigrams it is Kan; in the body it is the kidneys, Kidney Water, and Lead. Great practitioners do not sleep by day or night, and fish likewise do not sleep, so the text says “there is a fish”—as the saying goes, “Vague and indistinct, yet within it there is essence.” The root of human life is hidden in the kidneys. The character Kun contains the character for “sun” on its right, subtly corresponding to the kidney orifice: Yang is hidden within Yin, which is why the fish is called Kun. “No one knows how many thousand li” is a metaphor for the kidneys: though tiny, they can transform into something immense. Heaven gives rise to Water first, and in humans the kidneys are likewise formed first. So the opening passage uses an allegory of the image of the kidney spirit.
It Transforms into a Bird Named Peng
The kidneys store essence, which can transform and rise, as if in flight. Hence the text says, “It transforms into a bird”—as the saying goes, “Vague and indistinct, yet within it there is a thing.” The character Peng has two “moon” elements on its left, subtly corresponding to the heart orifice: Yin is hidden within Yang, which is why the bird is called Peng. “The Peng’s back is no one knows how many thousand li” is a metaphor for the heart’s power of transformation, which is greater than that of the kidneys. Earth gives rise to Fire second, and in humans the heart is likewise formed second. Thus the next allegory is of the image of the heart spirit.
It Takes Flight in a Surge … and Migrates to the Southern Darkness
The two passages above describe only the states of the kidneys and heart; they have not yet reached the actual work of cultivation. Here the Dao practitioner begins to apply real effort. “Taking flight in a surge” means raising Kidney Water and flying without wings; “the sea’s movement” means that Kidney Water is activated. “Surge,” “fly,” “move,” and “migrate” all describe how true Qi rises from below during cultivation.
The Southern Darkness is the Southern Sea. In the trigrams it corresponds to Li; in the human body, to the heart, Fire, and Mercury. The Peng’s migration to the Southern Darkness means Kidney Water rising to unite with Heart Fire. This is “taking Kan to fill Li”: the single Yang line in Kan fills the Li trigram; Kan changes into Li, and the heart and kidneys unite. The Yi says, “The sage faces south and listens to the realm.” Facing south corresponds to Li. Those who cultivate the Dao follow this model: the true Yang within the kidneys rises to the heart and meets the spirit of the heart, like the Peng migrating from the Northern Sea to the Southern Sea. This passage refers directly to the union of Kan and Li and to cultivation that brings Water and Fire to completion.
Its power is immense: this is what is meant by “the intention moves, and the spirit moves with it.” The Southern Darkness refers to the southern sea. In the trigrams, it corresponds to Li; in the human body, to the heart; and in the Five Phases, to Fire. It symbolizes “Mercury” in alchemical practice, rising from the kidneys to the heart. Water above Fire is precisely the key to “reversing Kan and Li” in quiet cultivation. Whenever the text speaks of “darkness,” it means a dim, indistinct state that cannot be grasped. The kidneys and heart can only be apprehended inwardly, not seen with the eyes. That is why the text says Northern Darkness and Southern Darkness, rather than the Northern Sea and Southern Sea.
The Southern Darkness is also called the Celestial Pool. (The alchemical classics say: “Water in the kidneys conceals true Fire; Fire in the heart conceals true Water.” The Southern Darkness is where the water of the heart spirit has its source, hence the name Celestial Pool. They also say: “There is no other method of refining the Elixir: it is simply to guide divine water into the Flowery Pool.” This refers to the same thing.)
The Qixie is a book of strange tales. (In common speech, uneven human affairs are called “not even,” and unfinished matters “not harmonious.” Now Water and Fire occupy the same palace, and the trigrams form After Completion, so the book is named Qixie, “Even and Harmonious.” The usual order is Fire above and Water below; here Water is above and Fire below, so the account is called a record of the strange. The three thousand li, ninety thousand li, and six-month breath mentioned below are all signs of this strangeness.)
The Qixie records that when the Peng migrates to the Southern Darkness, it strikes the water for three thousand li and rides a whirlwind straight up ninety thousand li, sustained by the “breath of six months.”
(The Peng’s migration to the Southern Darkness is an image of the Daoist adept advancing the Yang Fire. A month has three thousand ke, and at every ke the River Chariot turns and kidney water rises. Is this not the “water striking three thousand li” of the month’s firing process? If one subtracts six days for each short month across the years, a year has only 354 days. A leap month every five years adds sixty days, or twelve days per year on average; half a year is then reckoned as 183 days. At the Winter Solstice, one Yang begins to rise from beneath the earth, ascending 459 li each day. By the following Summer Solstice it has risen 84,000 li and reached the heavens. Hence the phrase “riding a whirlwind and rising ninety thousand li”; “ninety thousand” is a rounded figure. This also serves as an image of the human body: the distance from the kidneys to the heart is about eight cun and four fen, making the body a small cosmos. The ascent and descent of Water and Fire in the body correspond, in the cosmos, to half a year of the firing process. The twelve months of the year correspond to the twelve hexagrams: the eleventh month, the Zi month, is the Fu hexagram, when one Yang is born; the Chou month is the Lin hexagram, with two Yang lines; the Yin month is the Tai hexagram, with three Yang lines… )
In the Mao month, Yang energy is strong and abundant: there are four Yang lines. The Chen month corresponds to the Guai hexagram, with five Yang lines; the Si month corresponds to the Qian hexagram, where the six Yang lines reach their limit. Is this not the principle of “one breath over six months”? Following this pattern, Golden Elixir adepts (practitioners of internal alchemy) establish the advancing Yang fire: in the fifth month, when Wu is the month marker, the Gou hexagram appears, with one Yin line arising; in the Wei month, the Dun hexagram has two Yin lines; in the Shen month, the Pi hexagram has three; in the You month, the Guan hexagram has four; in the Xu month, the Bo hexagram has five; and in the Hai month, the Kun hexagram has six Yin lines, reaching their limit. They likewise follow the principle of “one breath over six months” in establishing the retreating Yin tally.
Heaven and Earth take the winter solstice, summer solstice, spring equinox, and autumn equinox as major fire-phase timings—key points in cultivation when Yin and Yang wax and wane. Golden Elixir adepts, by contrast, take the hours and months associated with Zi and Wu, Mao and You as their timings. These are the major fire-phase timings of the year.
“Wild horses”—the Qi that drifts through Heaven and Earth—and “dust”—the motes floating in sunlight—sometimes gather and sometimes disperse. Both are stirred by Heaven and Earth’s great breathing, its drawing in and releasing. The human body’s inhalation and exhalation are a small breath, also counted as one breath; accomplished practitioners also cultivate the art of breath retention. Here, Heaven, Earth, and humanity are discussed together, hence the phrase “living things are blown about by breath.” The Southern Flower Classic (the Zhuangzi) proceeds from the “Northern Dark” to this passage as an account of stillness practice: from laying the foundations at the outset to the spirit becoming concentrated, the work of clarity and stillness is complete.
Is the sky so blue because that is its original color, or because it is so far away that we cannot see where it ends? Looking down from the sky would be much the same as looking up at it from the ground: it would seem distant, with no visible end. Hence the saying, “It is simply like this.”
If water does not accumulate to sufficient depth, it cannot bear a large boat. Pour a cupful of water into a hollow in the courtyard, and only a blade of grass can serve as a boat. Put the cup itself in, and it sticks fast, unable to move—the water is shallow and the boat is too large. A Golden Elixir allegory says that water must accumulate fully in the kidneys before true fire can arise and Complete Perfection be achieved. The cup of water and the phrase “put the cup in, and it sticks fast” are metaphors for trying to prolong life with methods meant to treat minor illnesses: it is bound to fail.
If the wind does not accumulate to sufficient strength, it cannot support great wings. That is why the Peng must fly ninety thousand li before the wind lies beneath it.
By now, the Great Peng bears the blue sky on its back, with nothing in its way, and only then sets out to fly south. (Note: Guang Chengzi’s view that “wind” means “fire,” and that accumulating wind means accumulating fire, is clear. These two lines about wind gathering are plainly an allegory: until the firing process is ready, the wings cannot grow. Mercury belongs to fire, so eight ounces of mercury must be paired with half a catty of lead before one can “set out for the south.” The south belongs to fire; “setting out for the south” means advancing the yang fire. Keep advancing the fire, and when the firing process is complete, there will be no north or south, no east or west. Thus, when Buddhists say “Namo Amitabha Buddha,” they mean that the firing process is complete and the Way has been realized.)
The cicada and the little dove mocked it, saying, “I flap hard and fly up, then stop when I reach an elm or a fang tree. Sometimes I can’t even make it that far and just fall to the ground. Why fly ninety thousand li to the south?” (Note: The cicada and the dove represent minor healing techniques from heterodox paths, whose practitioners foolishly hope for eternal life. How difficult, how difficult!)
If you go to the nearby countryside, take provisions for three meals and return the same day with your stomach still full. If you travel a hundred li, you must pound rice through the night to prepare your travel food. If you travel a thousand li, you must start storing provisions three months ahead. What could these two little creatures know? (“Go” means to travel; “the nearby countryside” means the settlements on the outskirts; “full” describes being well fed. Journeys differ in distance, so the amount of food differs, just as people’s understanding differs in scope and their aims differ in reach. The two creatures are the cicada and the dove; “what could they know?” means they know nothing of the Great Peng.)
Small understanding cannot match great understanding, and a short life cannot match a long one. How do we know this? The morning mushroom, which grows on dung, knows nothing of the change from the end of one month to its beginning; the summer cicada knows nothing of spring and autumn. These are short lives. In the south of Chu there is a tree called mingling, which takes five hundred years for one spring and five hundred years for one autumn. In ancient times there was a great chun tree, which took eight thousand years for one spring and eight thousand years for one autumn. Yet Peng Zu is still especially renowned for longevity, and people keep comparing themselves with him. Is that not sad? (This passage moves from “what could the two creatures know?” to “small understanding and great understanding,” then from that to “short lives and long lives,” with each idea following from the last. The morning mushroom is a fungus that grows on dung, appearing at dawn and dying when the sun rises. The summer cicada is the hui gu, born in summer and dead by autumn. Because lifespans vary in length, understanding also varies in scope. The lifespans of mingling and the great chun, along with Peng Zu’s longevity, all illustrate this point.)
A Plain-Language Interpretation
I. The Limits of Life, Pengzu, and the Great Roc
Life is limited, so no one can remain “famous in the world” for long. True longevity can be spoken of only by those who, like Pengzu, understand the deeper meaning of “the fish of the Northern Darkness transforming into a roc, which sets out southward and flies ninety thousand li”—an image for attaining the Great Dao of the Golden Elixir. It is pitiable that people try to match such longevity through minor, heterodox techniques.
II. Tang Questions Ji: The Kun-Peng and the Little Marsh Bird
The story of Tang questioning Ji (an allusion of the kind found in the “Questions of Tang” in the Liezi) says: North of “the land where no hair grows,” in the northern wastes, lie a dark sea and a heavenly lake. In them lives a fish thousands of li wide, whose length is unknown, called the Kun. There is also a bird called the Peng. Its back is like Mount Tai, and its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky. Riding the fúyáo (a named wind) and the yángjiǎo (a whirlwind that twists upward), it rises ninety thousand li, passes through the clouds, bears the blue sky on its back, and then sets out southward for the Southern Darkness.
The chìyàn (a small marsh bird; the name is pronounced yàn) laughs at it: “Where are you flying? I leap only a few yards, fluttering among the weeds, and that is flying far enough for me. Why must you go so far?” This is the difference between the small and the great.
Meaning of the commentary: Some think that Zhuangzi’s use of both the Qixie and the “Questions of Tang” is merely stylistic variety. In fact, the Qixie subtly accords with the secret meaning of the Golden Elixir. Laozi and Zhuangzi did not repeat themselves to startle people; they feared that readers would take these accounts for strange tales and fail to reflect on them, so they spoke of them repeatedly, urging people to think deeply and understand for themselves. “The land where no hair grows” means a barren region; “yángjiǎo” refers to a whirlwind. The chìyàn represents minor, heterodox techniques that seem to work quickly, leading their practitioners to think they have attained the Dao, though they do not understand that the Great Dao of the Golden Elixir yields no quick results: it may take two years at the shortest or nine years at the longest. The Peng must fly ninety thousand li before setting out southward; its achievement is utterly beyond comparison with heterodox methods.
III. Song Rongzi, Liezi, and “That Which One Depends On”
Thus, those whose intelligence is sufficient to hold an official post, whose conduct stands out in their home district, whose virtue accords with a ruler, or who can win the trust of an entire state may regard themselves with the same satisfaction as the chìyàn. Song Rongzi, however, would still laugh at this attitude. Praise from the whole world does not spur him on, and condemnation from the whole world does not discourage him. He has “settled the distinction between inner and outer, and discerned the boundaries of honor and disgrace”—but only so far. He still has some concern for worldly matters (“he does not strive eagerly”), and “has yet to establish himself”: he has not established the ultimate Dao.
Liezi rode the wind, light and carefree, and returned after fifteen days. He, too, did not strive eagerly for such things as good fortune. Though he was freed from walking, he “still depended on something”: he still relied on the wind.
“But one who rides upon the rightness of Heaven and Earth and drives the transformations of the six breaths”—that is the ultimate state of depending on nothing. The text continues with “the Perfected Person has no self,” and so on.
Key points: The Kun-Peng represents the far-reaching achievement of the Great Dao; the chìyàn represents heterodox methods and the small successes of worldly people. Song Rongzi and Liezi successively expose the limits of dependence, leading toward the Perfected Person who depends on nothing.
“Having grasped how to roam through the boundless, what could such a person still depend on?” Thus it is said: “The Perfected Person is free of attachment to self; the Spirit Person is free of attachment to achievement; the Sage is free of attachment to fame.”
This passage follows the discussion of “distinctions between the small and the great.” Someone suited to one office has only the ability for that office; someone whose conduct is exemplary within one village is looked up to by that village; someone whose virtue accords with a ruler is worthy of that ruler; someone who wins the trust of a whole state has virtue enough to gain the confidence of its people. Such people consider themselves fully satisfied, like a little quail that flies only a few yards and thinks it has reached the highest point, unaware that it could go further.
Then there is Song Rongzi, who can set right and wrong, inner and outer, honor and disgrace on an equal footing, yet still cannot sustain the state of “depending on nothing.” Liezi can ride the air and travel with the wind, leaving no tracks, yet he still depends on the wind. Only by riding the natural order of Heaven and Earth and adapting to the changes of the Six Qi—what is meant by traveling from the Northern Sea in the morning to Cangwu by evening—can one speak of roaming without limit. When the true essence gathers, it takes form; when Qi disperses, it becomes wind. What, then, could such a person depend on? This is what is meant by “Free and Easy Wandering.”
Only Pengzu is renowned for his long life to this day. Practitioners of alchemy work at the four times of zi, wu, mao, and you, the four cardinal points of the day. Is this not a way of riding the natural order of Heaven and Earth? In spring, one consumes dawn clouds—the yellow Qi at sunrise; in summer, the pure Yang—the Qi at midday in the south; in autumn, the dark Yin—the reddish-yellow Qi at dusk; and in winter, the dew of the night—the Qi at midnight in the north. Together with the Qi of the Heavenly Origin and the Yellow Essence of Earth, these make up the Six Qi.
The Perfected Person, the Spirit Person, and the Sage are not greatly different; they are, in essence, one person. From the perspective of reaching the utmost, that person is called “Perfected”; from the perspective of unfathomable transformation, “Spirit”; and from the perspective of having no part in the obscure and illusory, “Sage.” To be free of self means to have no image of “I”; to be free of achievement means to have no image of another; to be free of fame means to have no name that can be named.
Yao wished to yield the empire to Xu You and said, “Now that the sun and moon have come out, would it not be needless to keep a torch burning? Now that timely rain has fallen, would it not be wasted effort to water the fields? If you were to take your place, the empire would be at peace. I still occupy the throne, yet I see my own inadequacy. Please accept the empire.”
Xu You said, “You have governed the empire, and it is already well governed. If I were to take your place, would I be seeking fame? I would be…”
Do you mean “fame”? Fame is merely a follower of reality. Why should I become its follower? A wren builds its nest in the deep forest and needs only one branch; a mole goes to the river to drink and needs only enough to fill its belly. Go back and rest, sir! The world is of no use to me. Yao regarded the world as a cook who, though not leaving the kitchen, lets the ritual officiant—the person who represents the deceased and receives offerings on their behalf—step over the sacrificial vessels and take over his work: no one should do another person’s proper task.
The commentators’ point is that Yao is a sage, Xu You a perfected person, and the spirit-being of Mount Gushe a divine being. There is no difference in rank among them, but each goes one step deeper. From Yao’s offer of the world to the “molding of Yao and Shun,” the repeated use of “borrowed words” and “goblet words” serves only to examine the world closely, forget the distinction between name and reality, cultivate the spirit to govern oneself, and regard governing the world as unnecessary. Yao exalted Xu You by comparing him to the sun, moon, and timely rain; his praise could hardly have been greater. Xu You’s refusal of the world was not an escape from fame, but an escape from the burden of reality. A nest on one branch and a bellyful of water show an even keener sense of how little the world is worth than Yao’s. Yao’s offer was like a cook who does not prepare the food but lets the ritual officiant step over the vessels and take over. Xu You would not take over; his unspoken point was that he had a more important ruler within himself to preserve. If one serves as the people’s ritual officiant in this age, why need a world that is merely like an inn? Yao wished to be free and at ease, but could not; Xu You, by contrast, could be free and at ease wherever he went.
Shoulder-Wu—whose name suggests bearing a burden or taking responsibility—asked Lian Shu, “I heard a story from Jieyu, the madman of Chu who once sang as he passed Confucius. It was grand, but had no grounding; it went on and never came back. His words frightened me. They seemed as boundless as the Milky Way and far removed from human experience.”
Lian Shu asked, “What did he say?”
Shoulder-Wu replied, “On Mount Gushe, said to lie in the Northern Sea, lives a divine being. His skin is like ice and snow, and his body is soft and delicate, like that of a young woman. He eats no grain, but breathes the wind and drinks the dew. Riding the clouds and harnessing dragons, he roams beyond the four seas. His spirit is so concentrated that he brings no harm to the myriad things and makes the grain ripen. Hearing this, I felt as though I were being deceived, and I dare not believe it.”
Lian Shu said, “Yes. How could a blind person understand…”
A Plain-Language Interpretation
A deaf person cannot appreciate fine writing, and a blind person cannot appreciate the sound of bells and drums. But are deafness and blindness confined to the body, ears, and eyes? Understanding—the mind’s capacity to know—can also be deaf and blind. This is what is meant by people like Xu You, and by the kind of De they embody.
Such a person can encompass all things and be one with them, yet does not disturb the world or exhaust himself by taking responsibility for everything under Heaven, as those who toil themselves to exhaustion do.
Nothing can harm him. Even when floodwaters reach the sky, they cannot drown him; even when a great drought melts metal and stone and scorches the hills, it cannot burn him. In his eyes, the world’s dust and chaff are merely material for fashioning Yao and Shun. Who, then, would make the management of external things his great concern?
(The passage continues the earlier account of Xu You refusing to accept the world: he laid down the burden, while Jian Wu felt responsible for bearing it, and so was astonished and afraid. The Spirit Person does not take the world or its myriad things as a personal responsibility; as a result, the world settles itself, and the myriad things grow of their own accord.)
This passage may be saying that ordinary people are deaf and blind not only in their ears and eyes, but also in their understanding. They do not realize that a Spirit Person must first stand beyond the world to govern it, and must see beyond the myriad things to nurture them. That is why Lianshu considers Jian Wu’s account shallow and looks down on what he has seen.
The world is like a jar, and the myriad things are like vinegar insects inside it. To move the jar, lift its lid, and release the insects, one must stand outside it. The Spirit Person of Mount Miaoguye stands beyond the world and above the myriad things. His practice lies entirely in gathering the spirit into stillness. To encompass the myriad things is to have them all within oneself. The Spirit Person does not wear himself out carrying the world’s burdens, and so can bring order to a troubled age. Yao and Shun, too, stood majestically over the world without claiming it as their own, and so could govern it. Yet they still treated things as their concern, and remained subject to them.
The De of the Spirit Person is different: he enters water without drowning and fire without burning, and is not made a servant of external things. His wondrous spirit and vital essence hold the cosmos in their grasp; he steps beyond Yin-Yang and fashions the myriad things. Who would make the management of things his concern? Though Yao and Shun were sages, they were still ordinary men within Yin-Yang. The achievements of the Tang and Yu eras were no more than dust and chaff—how could they escape his power to shape things? Wherever the Spirit Person goes, he is free and at ease.
(Continuing from the previous passage) This is something that truly happened, and it also embodies a true principle.
A man from the state of Song prepared a ceremonial hat in the Zhangfu style, as worn in the Yin dynasty, and planned to sell it in Yue. The people of Yue customarily cut their hair and tattooed their bodies, so they had no use for such a hat.
Yao governed the world and pacified all within the seas. Yet he went to the southern bank of the Fen River, near the place where he had established his capital, to visit four sages on Mount Miaogushe, where immortals were said to dwell. When he returned, he felt lost, as though he had forgotten the world—not that he had literally lost it, but that governing it no longer mattered to him.
Huizi said to Zhuangzi, “The king of Wei gave me a seed from a great gourd. I planted it, and the fruit it bore could hold five shi, an enormous measure of capacity. Its shell was too hard to carry when filled with water. When I cut it open to make a dipper, it was hollow and so large that it was no use. It wasn’t small; I just thought it was useless and smashed it.”
Zhuangzi said, “You really don’t know how to make use of something large. In Song there was a man skilled at preparing an ointment that kept hands from cracking in winter. His family had made a living for generations by washing and bleaching silk floss, but they earned very little. A visitor heard of the ointment and offered a hundred pieces of gold for the secret recipe. The family discussed it together: ‘For generations we’ve washed silk and earned hardly anything. If we sell the recipe now, we’ll get a hundred pieces of gold. Let’s sell it.’ The visitor took the recipe and used it to advise the king of Wu. When Yue invaded, the king of Wu put him in command of the troops. In winter, they fought Yue in a naval battle and routed its forces. The king granted him land and title as a reward. The same skill of keeping hands from cracking brought one man a fief, while another spent his whole life washing silk. The difference lay in how the skill was used.
“You have a gourd large enough to hold five shi. Why not think of turning it into a great vessel that could serve as a boat, and floating it on rivers and lakes? You worried that it was hollow and no good as a dipper. That is a mistaken way of thinking.”
This passage explains the deeper meaning of the section in the Zhuangzi: “Free and Easy Wandering” where Huizi and Zhuangzi discuss the large gourd and the great tree. The commentator is not simply translating the words; he is using Daoist teachings on the cultivation of nature and life to awaken the reader.
Who Huizi is, and where the problem lies
Huizi was an old friend of Zhuangzi, but the commentator says that this exchange is really Zhuangzi speaking through Huizi’s voice to make his own point. Huizi served as prime minister of the state of Liang and cared only for wealth, status, and power. He did not understand the Dao of nature and life. So Zhuangzi first uses the “large gourd” to illustrate how an empty center can preserve the whole, then the “great catalpa tree” to show how deep roots make a thing secure. Emptiness that can contain, and roots that can grow deep, are both ways to preserve oneself and live long. The commentator cautions that anyone who fixates on the wording and misses the parable will fail to grasp this meaning.
What “five stones” and “holding water and brew” mean
Here, “five stones” is interpreted as a large gourd corresponding to the five organs. It is used to hold water and brew, and is also linked to the Kan water of the “Northern Darkness” mentioned earlier. However sturdy the gourd may be, it cannot make Kan water rise and transform into a great Peng bird that flies fiercely toward the southern darkness. This presents the outward image through the lens of inner cultivation: the “useful large gourd” is split open and rendered useless. Conversely, ordinary people treasure wealth and status that only seem useless, treating them as “useful”—another reversal. To explain the workings of fortune and misfortune, waxing and waning in the transformations of nature, the commentary cites an immortal master’s image of “raising wind and clouds in the palm of one’s hand”; famous generals of antiquity, too, made their calculations by reading the palm. Huizi understands only prominence at court. He does not know the ease of holding the universe in one’s hand. His heart is clogged with weeds, which is what it means to have a “heart full of mugwort.”
“The medicine for uncracked hands” and “a great wine jar floating on rivers and lakes”
Huizi asks about a medicine that keeps hands from cracking in winter. (In the commentary, Yudu interprets “cracked hands” as something like hands shrinking from the cold.) One person uses it to rinse silk floss and spends generation after generation washing silk. Another acquires the medicine, becomes a general for the state of Wu, and defeats the state of Yue. It is the same medicine: used on a small scale, it means a lifetime of washing silk floss; used on a grand scale, it brings military achievement. Zhuangzi urges him: why not think of using it to make a huge wine jar and float in it on rivers and lakes? That is where one can wander freely. The point is that the same principle of transformation can lead to vastly different outcomes depending on the scope of one’s understanding and the way one puts it to use.
The catalpa tree, the wildcat, and the yak
Huizi goes on to describe a great catalpa tree with a swollen, crooked trunk that carpenters will not use. Your teachings, he says, are so grand and “useless” that everyone avoids them. Zhuangzi replies: consider the wildcat. It crouches low, waiting for prey, then darts this way and that, only to end up caught in a net and killed. Then consider the yak, as large as a cloud hanging from the sky. It can be immense, but it cannot catch mice. If you had such a great tree and feared it was useless, why not plant it in the “land of No-Thing,” in the vast wilderness? You could lie beneath it and wander at ease, or sleep peacefully under it, beyond the reach of knife and axe. It would escape the harm of blades and axes, and its uselessness would bring no burden. Here, “uselessness” means preservation and freedom, in contrast to Huizi’s “usefulness,” which is confined to rules and measurements.
The main thread of the commentary is clear: Huizi represents a mind consumed by wealth and status and constrained by practical utility. Through the gourd, the tree, the medicine, the wildcat, and the yak, Zhuangzi speaks of an empty center, deep roots, great usefulness, and the land of No-Thing. Readers who take the passage merely as rhetorical sparring miss the commentator’s intended path of cultivating nature and life and attaining freedom.
Wandering freely across an open, boundless plain, reclining at ease beneath a tree to rest—no axe or hatchet can fell it, and no creature can harm it. What hardship could it possibly face?
(Buddhists say, “The body is the Bodhi tree,” so the great tree signifies more than plants and trees. The Sixth Patriarch says, “Bodhi is originally no tree,” so the scholar tree is only an allegory. Its swollen trunk cannot be measured with a carpenter’s ink line: this is a metaphor for not judging great De by the standards of the “three hundred rites.” Its crooked branches do not fit the compass and square: this is a metaphor for not binding minor conduct by the rules of the “three thousand forms of proper conduct.” Patriarch Yuchan said, “Remember the place where I stretched out my hand on the busy thoroughfare: a thousand households said, ‘How ashamed we are,’ and then stood up.” Even the lacquer craftsman would not give the tree a second glance.
Zhuangzi taught Huizi to make a great gourd of five stones into a large vessel and float it on rivers and lakes. Huizi still failed to understand, saying it was too big to be useful and that everyone would discard it. Did he imagine that clever tricks and petty ingenuity could sustain a life well? He did not know that those who prize clever devices in this world are like civets and orangutans: though small and “useful,” they cannot escape disaster. How much better the large tailed ox, which is “useless,” yet beyond the harm of all creatures.
Zhuangzi also taught Huizi that a useless great tree could provide shade: why not plant it in “the land of Nothing-at-All, the vast wilderness”—what Buddhists call the land of non-arising? Wander beside the Dao of Wuwei (non-action), and recline freely beneath the tree—what Buddhists call the Great Freedom Bodhisattva. The immortal master’s words, “Beneath the shadowless tree, chant to the wind and play with the moon; beneath the seamless pagoda, settle your body and establish your life,” express just this. The Buddha’s words, “When the head is laid before a white blade, it is as though spring wind were being cut,” mean that one is unharmed by axes and hatchets, and untouched by anything in the world. The Great Dao loses its sheep because there are many branching paths; scholars lose their lives because their methods are too mixed. Daoists cherish the spirit, and so the spirit endures. Is this not what it means to have “no use for anything” and therefore “no hardship to face”?
Master Fuwei said: The spirit of the entire Nanhua Classic is contained in “Free and Easy Wandering,” and the central teaching that governs this chapter is “the spirit gathers in stillness.” The places where one is taught to apply effort are the Northern Sea (Kan water) and the Southern Sea (Li fire); the places where effort truly takes effect are the Kun fish’s transformation and the Peng bird’s journey south—like the River Cart turning, circulating without end.
Here, time is reckoned by the sun and moon: there is the practice of “day after day” and “month after month,” as well as the practice of “one yue” (an ancient unit of time, roughly thirty days). The “three thousand li,” “ninety thousand li,” and “six months’ breath” are all calculated in units of months and yue.
The Kan trigram symbolizes lead and water, corresponding to the kidneys in the human body. The kidneys belong to Water. If the water is not deep enough, it cannot bear a great ship. This is a metaphor for the need to accumulate Kidney Water so that one may transform into a Kun fish. The Li trigram symbolizes mercury and fire, corresponding to the heart. Wind is fire; if the wind is not strong enough, it cannot support the great bird’s wings. This is a metaphor for the need to accumulate Li Fire so that one may transform into a Peng bird and fly south.
The Book of Changes says, “Heaven moves with strength; the noble person accordingly strives without ceasing.” This is precisely the essential principle of becoming a sage or immortal. Here, the Kun fish of the Northern Darkness serves as a metaphor; in the alchemical scriptures, it is represented instead by the “Water Tiger.” The Peng bird of the Southern Darkness serves as a metaphor; in the alchemical scriptures, it is represented by the “Fire Dragon.” No one has ever claimed that the alchemical scriptures are tales of the strange. Why, then, do people insist that Zhuangzi and Laozi were the first to use tales of the strange to advertise themselves?
In fact, the Way of longevity was founded in the Dao De Jing and elaborated in the Nanhua Zhenjing (the “True Classic of the Southern Florescence,” that is, the Zhuangzi). The author may have feared revealing Heaven’s secrets, and so used the words “tales of the strange” as a veil and a filter: those without an immortal’s bone from a past life, and who have not received the true person’s oral instructions, would surely be unable to grasp the real meaning. The three thousand six hundred heterodox methods are all lesser forms of wisdom. To transform from a Kun fish into a Peng bird and fly south is the greater wisdom. Lesser and greater wisdom naturally differ in weight.
Without someone like Peng Zu, famous for his longevity, who would believe that the waters of the Northern Darkness could rise up and transform into a Peng bird that flies south? Could the “Questions of Tang” in the Liezi be empty words? Those who are not content with a career confined to one office or one region, one ruler or one state, and who can forget right and wrong, see clearly the inner and outer, and distinguish honor from disgrace, are indeed more accomplished than those skilled at managing worldly affairs. Yet their work of “boiling Water and refining Fire” is not yet complete; hence the saying, “They still had nothing to depend on.”
Liezi rode the wind; this happened after he had attained the Dao, and his reliance on something does not disqualify him. When one’s true Qi is full, one can use one’s own true Qi to draw upon Heaven and Earth’s vital energy and ride the six Qi of the cosmos. The Rujing says, “Within a single day, at any of the twelve double-hours, whatever the mind directs can be accomplished.” What need, then, would he have for anything to rely on?
Yao was a sage. A sage who yielded the realm to another but did not leave it could not be free and unfettered. Xu You was a Perfected Person. A Perfected Person who yielded the realm but refused to accept it had freedom and ease as his aim. The spirit person of Mount Miaoguye first gathers the spirit, and afterward the spirit becomes still.
A Vernacular Interpretation of the Annotations and Commentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence
One need not set one’s mind on “governing the world”; the world can then settle itself. Use one’s True Essence to cultivate oneself, and things outside the body become like dust and chaff. Fashioning and transforming the myriad things, Yao and Shun were merely outstanding products of that process. Wherever the Spirit Person goes, they are free and at ease.
Zhuangzi and Huizi were especially well matched, and most of their question-and-answer exchanges are Zhuangzi speaking about himself through allegory. If the two ideas of “emptiness within” and “deep roots” were explained too plainly, they would lose their lingering resonance. What is more, Zhuangzi, the Master of Southern Florescence, is regarded as the ancestor of the Elixir Texts, so one would be even less willing to state these things outright.
To speak plainly of “a huge gourd as large as five stones”: the allegorical figure has a body with Five Organs, sturdy yet unable to lift itself. This suggests that people are weighed down by flesh and blood and cannot rise beyond the ordinary. They do not know that the principles of transformation are all within easy reach; those who do not understand transformation often find themselves at a loss, unable to act. A great talent put to small use—if a person with Daoist vitality had command, they could summon wind and clouds with a gesture.
“To defeat the people of Yue utterly” means that neither the great nor the small were harmed, and both states were preserved; only after the fighting ended could one see what was meant by a sage. Could it be that he still had a “heart cramped like a gourd,” unable to escape the world’s net and return to rivers and lakes? In the rivers and lakes, one is free and at ease.
Thinking of the gourd as a great vessel: though it is empty, it is still caught up in being a vessel. Floating freely on rivers and lakes may be pleasant, but it still falls within the realm of “being.” So there is a further step: “The great trunk does not conform to the carpenter’s ink line”—a metaphor for something that cannot be judged by the great measuring line. “The small branches do not conform to compass and square”—a metaphor for something that cannot be faulted for failing to meet the standards of fine conduct. Neither the great trunk nor the small branches are of practical use; this subtly contains the way of deep roots and firm foundations.
People do not understand him, and he is great yet useless; since everyone turns away from him, it is only natural that one who stands beyond the ordinary world should remain aloof and hard to reconcile with worldly people. In writing about Huizi, Zhuangzi depicts the bearing of a Daoist person who stands beyond the world. To cling to a particular view is to be like the small, useful wildcat, which cannot avoid calamity. Better to be like the great, useless yak, which no creature can harm. If one can understand “the use of the useless,” one has advanced toward the Dao.
People live between Heaven and Earth; who among them does not try to establish themselves in the realm of being? Yet in the end, all return to nowhere. The Immortal Master of Southern Florescence teaches Huizi to seek being within nonbeing, and breadth within narrowness. Hence he says to plant it in “the land of nowhere, in the vast open wilderness”: because it is nowhere, it can be vast and open.
The clear, empty realm of the precelestial does not fall into the postcelestial domain of form and Qi. “Wandering in the realm of Wuwei” means that all one’s actions and conduct accord with natural non-action; “roaming freely beneath one’s resting place” means that daily life unfolds in ease and freedom. Such a person can pass among metal and stone without being harmed by axes or adzes. They engage with the myriad things without being bound by them, so external things cannot injure them. Ordinary people know only how to pursue what is useful and inevitably become troubled by usefulness. But the truly perfected person has no use at all—how could they fall into hardship? The final eight sentences portray the immortal elder’s free and easy realm: from “In the northern darkness there is a fish” to “plans to journey south” describes refining Jing and returning it to Qi; from “accepting an official post” to “molding and shaping Yao and Shun” describes refining Qi and returning it to Shen; from “King Wei presented me with” to the end describes refining Shen and returning it to emptiness. Readers of the Nanhua should grasp this central meaning to attain true freedom.
Inner Chapter Two: “Discourse on the Equality of Things”
(Heaven and Earth are the greatest among the myriad things; human beings are the things that stand in relation to “me,” and “I” am one thing among Heaven, Earth, and humanity. The myriad things are not originally equal, yet people insist on making them alike. This is merely a subjective attachment between self and other. Better to forget both and return to nature; that is true equality among things.)
Nanguo Ziqi, a Daoist recluse, sat leaning on his armrest and sighed toward the sky, looking as if he had lost his companion in form and spirit. His disciple Yancheng Ziyou stood beside him and asked, “Why does your body look like dry wood and your mind like dead ashes? The way you lean on your armrest today is unlike anything I have seen before.” Ziqi replied, “You ask well, Ziyou! At this moment, I have forgotten myself. Do you understand? (‘Forgetting oneself’ is central to the Discourse on the Equality of Things; such a person surely does not take the body as a starting point.) Have you heard the sounds made by people, but not the sounds made by the earth? Have you heard the sounds made by the earth, but not the sounds of Heaven—the sounds of nature?”
Ziyou said, “I have never heard what is meant by ‘Heaven’s piping.’”
Lu Xixing’s commentary explains: “Pipes are flutes made of bamboo, long and short, with high and low notes. The sounds they produce change in countless ways. This is a fitting image for the varied and conflicting arguments of all things, which are made by people; hence they are called ‘human piping.’ Earth’s piping is the sound made when breath moves through the many openings in trees. Heaven’s piping is soundless, yet able to give rise to sound; it is what all the sounds under Heaven depend on. Hence it is called ‘Heaven.’”
Ziyou said, “May I ask how this works?” Ziqi replied, “The Great Block—that is, Heaven and Earth—breathes out, and this is called wind. Why is there wind between Heaven and Earth? It is like a person sighing: once it stirs, it fills the whole world. Take just one opening in a great tree: when it does not move without cause, there is no sound; when it moves, the myriad openings roar. (‘Roar’ means the sound of wind. The sound differs with each opening, just as words emerge through the openings of the heart, though the principle is one.) Have you never heard that long, drawn-out wind? In the mountain forests, among towering thickets whose trees sway and gather, the openings in trees a hundred spans around may resemble noses, with two holes; mouths, with one; ears, with slanting holes; square mortises; cup-shaped rings; or mortars. Some are hollow and curved; others hold water. These describe the shapes of the openings. Some sound like water crashing; some like arrows flying; some burst out with a coarse voice; some draw in with a fine one; some cry out in a high pitch; some howl in a deep, muddied tone; some sound deep and lingering; others bark in a continuing stream. These describe the sounds of the openings. One begins by singing “yu,” a light note; another follows with “yong,” a strong response. The sounds come in alternating gusts, as the wind moves through the openings. A cool breeze brings a gentle chorus; a whirlwind brings a great one. When the fierce wind stops, the myriad openings return to emptiness, and no sound can be heard. Have you never seen them swaying and trembling? Earlier, “Have you never heard?” called on the ears; here, “Have you never seen?” calls on the eyes.”
You Ziyou said, “I understand that the sounds of the earth are the noises made by the many openings in things, and that the sounds of humans come from instruments such as flutes and pipes. May I ask what the sounds of Heaven are?”
Master Ziqi said, “When the wind blows through the myriad openings, each makes a different sound. It is as though each opening produces its own sound; the openings themselves bring this about. But what is it that makes them roar and howl? Different openings make different sounds, so we say that the wind blows through them in countless ways. Yet the openings must be there before the sounds can arise, and when the wind comes through, each opening brings forth its own sound. If the openings themselves truly make the sounds, then what roars and howls—is it the wind, or is it something other than the wind? There must be a master behind it all. This can only be called the sound of Heaven.
“The great understanding is calm and at ease, moving through the world without deliberate contrivance; petty understanding is full of calculations and builds barriers between self and others. Great words blaze upward like flames, their brilliance shining high; petty words are trivial, tangled in what came before and what comes after. In sleep, the spirits mingle and dreams arise; on waking, body and spirit separate as we respond to the affairs of the world. This is how those skilled at navigating the world conduct themselves. Some are slow and yielding, others sly and secretive, still others meticulous in their calculations. A small fear makes them uneasy; a great fear scatters their wits. Their impulses spring like a crossbow trigger and arrow notch: this is what it means to manipulate right and wrong. They guard their intentions as if bound by curses and solemn oaths: this is what it means to cling to their own views. They harm others like the killing force of autumn and winter; this is what it means for their natural vitality to fade day by day. They sink into what they are doing beyond all hope of turning back, as though carried along to drowning. They shut themselves off from the world as if their mouths were sealed; this is what it means for the calculating mind to grow more deeply entrenched with age. A heart nearing death must not be made to revive its Yang. When bright Yang governs, all is alive with vitality; when dark schemes govern, all is charged with the impulse to destroy.”
This passage explores the relationship between the various fluctuating states of the human mind and the workings of natural creation. Lu Xixing points out that this continues the previous discussion on "small knowledge being inferior to great knowledge," illustrating how the twelve emotional states of the human mind (joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, worry, lamentation, fickleness, fear, frivolity, indulgence, openness, and closure) follow the same principle as the wind moving through trees or forms and sounds resonating in nature.
These emotions arise from emptiness like music, only to vanish again, or condense like steam forming mushrooms—appearing and disappearing unpredictably. They alternate before us day and night, yet we cannot discern their source. The author sighs: "Enough, enough! I understand now—all these phenomena stem from the workings of creation! Without creation, there would be no me; without my perception, creation couldn't manifest. The two are actually quite close, yet we don't know who truly governs them."
It's as if there were a "True Governor" (真宰) secretly directing everything, yet no trace of it can be found. Creation indeed exists and functions, though without concrete form. This resembles the Chan Buddhist saying about "salt in water or glue in paint"—undeniably present yet formless. Our bodies, with all their hundred bones, nine orifices, and six organs, are complete and functional, but which part is truly closest to us? If we cherish them all equally, would there still be partiality? These organs take turns governing one another like ministers and concubines alternating in power—or is there perhaps a "True Ruler" (真君) presiding over them all?
Note: The terms "True Governor" and "True Ruler" here refer to core Daoist concepts representing the fundamental principle or governing force behind all phenomena—personified expressions akin to the Dao itself.
The Meaning of the Passage (in the Context of the Zhuangzi)
The True Ruler—the master within, or one’s true nature—governs the hundred bones and nine apertures; it is not led around by them. Even if someone seeks to “attain” this true nature, gaining or failing to gain it neither adds to nor diminishes it. True nature—the disposition of the True Ruler—never leaves the “I,” day or night. It is no greater when attained, nor any less when unattained. The “true” being discussed here is the same truth of the True Ruler mentioned above. True nature is neither harmful nor beneficial in itself: awakening to it makes one a sage; losing one’s way leads one among ordinary people.
Once a person takes shape through the transformations of nature, they will not die before that form has run its course. Yet throughout life they move among external things, sometimes opposed to them and sometimes in accord, rushing along as if in a mad dash that no one can stop. Is this not tragic? It is what happens when one fails to see that what is inward is precious and what is outward is of lesser worth—like using a pearl to shoot at a magpie, or wearing one’s fur coat inside out while carrying firewood. Is that not tragic? To toil all one’s life without seeing any achievement, to become utterly exhausted without knowing where to return—is that not pitiful? The world mourns my death, but I mourn that people do not know how to return to their root and fulfill their destiny.
Ordinary people say, “What use is it if a person does not die?”—meaning, in relation to the transformation of bodily form. This is the view of a pedantic Confucian: they know only how to cherish the skin and hair, while the True Person cherishes the spirit. Every bodily form undergoes change, but there is a way for the spirit to endure. The pedantic Confucian’s question, “What use is it?” arises precisely because the spirit is depleted day after day, while they merely wait for the body to run its course, unaware that they should return.
More tragic still are those who oppose this with their words but accept it in their hearts, content with the body’s extinction and glad to spend their lives in a headlong rush. First, I grieve for those who do not know how to return. Then I grieve even more for those who promote the claim “What use is it not to die?” and lead the whole world to lose its way home. Is that not a great sorrow?
Human life is simply like this: bewildered, moving as if in a headlong rush. Yet am I alone in taking this “bewilderment” as a call to strive without ceasing, as in the saying, “As Heaven moves with vigor, so the noble person strives without ceasing”? Surely there are people who are not bewildered in this way. The point is: how could one be bewildered while engaging with the world, yet not bewildered when turning away from it and striving to strengthen oneself?
Key Points from the Commentary
The True Ruler: This is not the “I” that is dragged along by the ears, eyes, nose, tongue, limbs, and bones, but the master that governs them.
Gain and loss: Seeking the truth is not a way to “add points” to true nature. Losing one’s way does not mean true nature has vanished. The difference lies in awakening or confusion, and in being a sage or an ordinary person.
Sorrow and grief: The sorrow lies in trading something precious for something of little value and spending one’s whole life chasing external things. The grief lies in not knowing how to return to one’s root and fulfill one’s destiny. Greater still is the grief of misleading people with claims such as “What use is it if bodily form changes?”
“What use is it not to die?” The commentator criticizes the common view that values only the body and not the spirit. The True Person values the spirit’s capacity to endure; this does not mean clinging to the body and insisting that it must never die.
Bewilderment: Ordinary people spend their lives rushing about in confusion. A noble person, too, may be “bewildered” in the sense of striving without cease, but this differs from being confused and simply following the crowd.
A Plain-Language Interpretation of an Excerpt from the True Classic of Southern Florescence, with Commentary and Subcommentary
(The passage above discusses people of the type who “overcome themselves.”) If everyone treats their own settled mind—the mind fixed by habit and prejudice—as a teacher, who would say they have no teacher? And why must one understand the cycles of change—such as the alternation of Yin and Yang and the rotation of the Five Phases—before taking one’s own mind as a guide? There are indeed people like this in the world, and plenty among the dull-witted. We have heard of taking the ancients as teachers, but not of taking the “mind” as one’s teacher—much less a settled mind! A settled mind is one stained by ingrained habits and fixed in its ways. To follow each person’s settled mind as a teacher is like everyone claiming to be Ji or Xie, ancient worthy ministers, and every household claiming to be Gao Yao, another ancient worthy minister: each clinging to one side. To understand change is to know the shifting course of Yin and Yang and the succession of the Five Phases. Why insist on understanding it in this way? Those who take a settled mind as their teacher are foolish and self-willed, already committed in their hearts to a partial view.
“Before the mind is settled, there is already right and wrong.” This is like saying, “Today I am setting out for Yue, but I think I arrived yesterday.” The settled mind mentioned above is a mind confined to one corner. Here, “before the mind is settled” means that even this one-sided view has been cast aside, leaving one unsure which way to go—east, west, south, or north. It is like setting out for Yue only today, yet thinking one arrived years ago. How can one be sure of not losing the way when there are so many branching roads?
“Taking what is not there to be there” means insisting that what does not exist does exist. When what is not is taken to be, things become even less equal. So even a sage like the divine Yu, the Great Yu, could not make sense of it—what could I do? The myriad things originally come from nothing and eventually return to nothing; this is why the chapter is called “On the Equality of Things.” Now, if nothing is taken to be something, things become still less equal. Thus even Yu, who acted through Wuwei (non-action), could not understand it.
“Words are not like blowing.” Speech is not like the sound of wind blowing. To say that a speaker has something to say means that the speaker distinguishes right from wrong in their heart. Yet the right and wrong they speak of have no settled standard; it is hard to say what kind of words they really are. Is there truly speech that deliberately takes charge of right and wrong? Or has nothing actually been said? If one thinks this differs from the call of a nestling—the sound made just before a young bird breaks out of its shell, seeming at once to be a sound and not a sound—is there also disputation? In fact, there is no disputation. Is there speech? In fact, there is no speech. One who follows Heaven and speaks without ever clinging to words is like the nestling’s call: a sound that seems to be no sound. What is called disputation is disputation shaped by a settled mind. Is there speech in it? In fact, there is none. This is the kind of sound that accords with the sounds of Heaven: it is like blowing, and is what is called the sounds of Heaven, the natural sounds not contrived by human intent.
Where could the Dao be hidden? Yet people divide it into true and false. The true refers to the proper principle of the Golden Elixir in internal alchemy.
A Vernacular Interpretation of the Nanhua True Scripture: Commentary and Subcommentary
The Dao and the artificial: “Dao” means the true Way; “artificial” refers to the three thousand six hundred heterodox paths. What is true is true of itself, and what is false is false of itself; neither was deliberately hidden in the first place.
Words and right and wrong: Where there is a Dao, there are words; where there is truth and falsehood, there is right and wrong. What is right is right of itself, and what is wrong is wrong of itself. How could right and wrong be hidden?
Where does the Dao go?: The true Dao and the false Dao are two different paths. Thus it is said, “Wherever the Dao goes, it is still there”—though in some cases a name matches the reality, and in others it does not.
Can words establish anything?: Those who speak for what is true take truth as right and falsehood as wrong; in their words, “truth” can stand. Those who speak for what is false take falsehood as right and truth as wrong; in their words, “falsehood” can also stand. Since right and wrong have no settled verdict, it is said, “Words exist, yet no single view can necessarily be established as supreme.”
The Dao is obscured by minor attainments: Great accomplishment in the Golden Elixir is rare. Those without a Dao connection from past lives often do not believe in it. Minor accomplishments along heterodox paths are easier to attain, and those with even a slight desire to prolong life often see results. Thus the Great Dao is often concealed within “great accomplishment,” while most people are drawn to “minor attainments.”
Words are obscured by worldly splendor: Words are meant to reveal the Dao. But those who are attached to worldly splendor cannot set the Dao aside in their minds; when they single-mindedly yearn for splendor, they lose the Dao, and their words fade into obscurity.
During the Warring States period, Confucians and Mohists flourished side by side. The Confucians regarded “generosity” as right and condemned the Mohists; the Mohists regarded “frugality” as right and condemned the Confucians. Who could stand between them and judge what was right and wrong? Zhuangzi and Laozi therefore led people to the idea that “it is better to use illumination.” This “illumination” is the same as the “illumination” in the Book of Documents phrase “when the moon first shows its brightness”; alchemical texts also speak of “the moon’s emergence at Geng.” Those who wish to learn how to attain long life should first understand the Way of Heaven before they have understood the human way, then bring the Way of Heaven into accord with the human way.
“Of things, none is not that; none is not this”: Here, “things” refers to the lesser Yin in the human realm. The Great Yin in the heavens appears about once a month, and the lesser Yin in the human realm appears about once a month. The lesser Yin in the human realm must correspond to the Great Yin in the heavens; its appearance once a month, like that of the Great Yin, is what is meant by “this.”
“From that, one does not see”: When the great medicinal substance of the lesser Yin is about to arise each month, its essence appears faintly. If one observes only from the perspective of “that,” one cannot see oneself.
“Know it by knowing oneself”: Only by knowing and observing oneself can one truly know it.
When the scene within the abdomen resembles that of the previous month, the great medicine has formed. Only the practitioner knows this. Hence the saying, “It emerges from this”: in the heavens, the lunar Yin first appears on the third day of the month in the Geng direction, so it emerges from “this.” “This” also arises through “that”: “this” refers to human Yin in its lesser form, which appears once each month through the lunar Yin.
The claim that “that” and “this” are just beginning to arise refers to the earlier word “pattern”: the moon’s appearance in the Geng direction marks the beginning of its brightness. Though it is at once arising and dying, and at once dying and arising: although the moon appears in the Geng direction, it goes unseen at Ding, becomes full at Jia, and is still growing before the fifteenth day. After the sixteenth, it wanes at Xin, diminishes at Bing, disappears at Yi, and grows dark at Ren; then it is dying. Death is the root of life: on the thirtieth of the previous month, the moon dies; on the first day of the new month, the new moon appears at Gui; and on the third day it appears again at Geng. Is this not dying and arising at once? This is the time when the medicine is born.
It is then that something may be done, and may not be done; and may not be done, and may be done. This concerns the fire timing and its maturity: there is a distinction between what can be done but should not be, and what seems impossible but can be done. There is also cause in what is so, and no cause in what is not so. When the fire timing arrives, one must distinguish not only between maturity and immaturity, but also between what is genuine and what is false. These distinctions of right and wrong are fixed. Practitioners should follow them, rather than determine right and wrong according to their own biases.
Therefore, the sage does not rely on personal views, but reflects the workings of Heaven. “Does not rely” means not relying on personal views; “reflects the workings of Heaven” means, as the Yinfu Jing says, “Observe the Way of Heaven and follow its actions.” This too arises through “this”: the maturity and immaturity of the fire timing in the human way also depend on the waxing and waning of the heavenly way, so one must not impose personal views recklessly.
“This” is also “that,” and “that” is also “this”: “this” means what is without error. “That” is the heavenly way; it is without error because it is indeed the heavenly way. The heavenly way truly does not err, because its waxing and waning follow a fixed pattern. “That” has its own right and wrong, and “this” has its own right and wrong. “That” refers to the heavenly way, and “this” to the human way. Those who understand the fire timing know that one who speaks well of Heaven must find confirmation in human affairs. The human way has its own right and wrong, just as the heavenly way has its own. So, after all, is there “that” and “this,” or is there not?
People who do not understand the firing process often see the Way of Heaven as too distant and the human way as too close, falling once again into the opposition between “that” and “this.” If there truly is a distinction between that and this, people deny Heaven. If there is no such distinction at all, Heaven is Heaven and people are people, each in its proper place.
“That” and “this” cannot be joined as a pair. This is called the pivot of the Dao. A pivot is the hinge of a door: without it, the door cannot turn; without the pivot of the Dao, the transformations of creation cannot move. Only by grasping it at the center of the circle can one respond to endless change without exhaustion. “This” has no end, and “not this” also has no end. Therefore, it is better to use “clarity” to illuminate them.
Nothing is clearer than the sun and moon. The sun is always bright and easy for people to understand. But how can one truly absorb the essence of the sun and the splendor of the moon—the principles of brightness in the waxing, full, and waning moon—without a true immortal’s oral instruction and transmission from heart to heart? That is why the text earlier spoke of the firing process and the Way of Heaven.
To use “finger” as an analogy for the claim that “a finger is not a finger” is less apt than using “not-finger” to illustrate that claim. To use “horse” as an analogy for the claim that “a horse is not a horse” is less apt than using “not-horse” to illustrate it.
A finger has form. If one wishes to forget form, using a finger to illustrate not-finger still clings to form. Better to speak of the time before one’s parents were born: when there was no form, how could there have been a finger? A horse is a thing. If one wishes to forget things, using a horse to illustrate not-horse still clings to things. Better to speak of the time before the myriad things first emerged: when there were no things, how could there have been a horse?
The Yinfu Jing says, “The cosmos is in the palm of the hand.” Shao Yong, too, says that by observing the joints of the fingers one can know Heaven, and by examining the lines of the palm one can know Earth. Hence the saying, “Heaven and Earth are one finger.” A scripture also says, “The myriad transformations arise from the body.” The myriad things arise from Heaven and Earth, but their complete unfolding does not depend on Heaven and Earth alone; it also depends on people who fulfill their nature and assist in the process. A horse carries a person, but the journey does not depend on the horse alone; it also depends on the person who guides it. Hence the saying, “The myriad things are one horse.”
“Can it be so?”—What can be so is so of itself. “Can it not be so?”—What cannot be so is not so of itself.
“The Dao is made by walking it”—the Dao is not empty talk; it is realized through practice and cultivation.
If one could truly stir up winds and clouds in the palm of one’s hand and steady the spirit, so that all things suffered no calamities or illness and the harvests were abundant, then the principle of “pointing to a horse” would be more than mere talk: it could be realized through the workings of the Dao. “Things are so because they are called so” means that when people name things in a certain way, those things are taken to be that way. People also believe in the claim about “pointing to a horse,” supposing that how things change is entirely within their control.
What does it mean for something to be “so”? It is so because it is taken to be so. What does it mean for something to be “not so”? It is not so because it is taken not to be so. When we say the claim about “pointing to a horse” is correct, we mean that it is indeed so; when we say it may not be correct, we mean that it may not be so. There are reasons why things are taken to be as they are, and grounds for judging them in this way. Nothing is wholly not so, and nothing is wholly beyond such judgment. From this, we can see that everyone can understand the truth of the principle that “Heaven and Earth are one finger, and the myriad things are one horse.”
For example, a slender stalk or twig and a massive pillar, the ugly Li and the beautiful Xishi, things spacious and splendid and things bizarre and strange—all, when viewed in their totality through the Dao, belong to one whole. The stalk and the pillar differ in direction and size; Li and Xishi differ in ugliness and beauty; the bizarre and strange differ in being level or rugged, familiar or extraordinary. Yet the stalk and the pillar will both eventually decay, Li and Xishi will both eventually become white bones, and the strange things will ultimately return to nothingness. Does this not show that the Dao runs through all things and brings them into one?
Things acquire distinct features through their differences; once their forms take shape, the possibility of their destruction is already there. Whatever takes shape and is destroyed has formation and ruin when seen in terms of its physical form. Seen through the mystery of the Dao, however, there is no formation or ruin: in the end, all things become connected again as one. Only those who understand this know that differences of direction, beauty and ugliness, strangeness, formation and ruin are connected at their root and are not two.
Therefore, those who understand do not cling to judgments that divide things. They entrust themselves to the ordinary and everyday. “Ordinary” means everyday use; when use can flow through all things, it brings attainment. To attain this understanding appropriately is to draw near to the Dao. To follow things as they are of themselves, to dwell in them at ease without asking why they are so—this is called the Dao.
It is useless, yet never absent from the ordinary; within “uselessness,” there is still “use.” Use brings change and passage; passage turns what is favorable into what is contrary. To pass through and attain what is contrary: this is the way of becoming an immortal. The masters of this Great Way have all tested it; I have attained it through them. The vessels in the alchemical chamber are already of no use. When, in old age, one suddenly becomes young again, one does not know how it happens. That is why it is called the Great Way—how could it be some minor, unorthodox technique?
To exhaust one’s spirit in pursuit of “oneness,” without knowing that things are fundamentally the same, is called “three in the morning.”
What does “three in the morning” mean? The keeper of the monkeys gave them acorns, saying, “Three in the morning and four in the evening.” All the monkeys were angry. He then said, “In that case, four in the morning and three in the evening.” All the monkeys were pleased. The names and the actual amounts had not changed, yet joy and anger came into play. This, too, follows from the same principle. Therefore, the sage harmonizes things through affirmations and denials, and rests in the Heavenly Potter’s Wheel. This is called “walking two paths.”
(Note: “Oneness” means the Dao. Why exhaust one’s spirit to achieve it? If one exhausts one’s spirit in order to make things one, then one is no different from those who do not make them one. “Monkey” refers to the macaque; the “keeper of the monkeys” is the person who raises them. Three acorns in the morning and four in the evening, or four in the morning and three in the evening, each amount to seven pints—still three short of ten. As the saying goes, “take seven and make up three.” The names and actual amounts have not changed, yet joy and anger come into play; this, too, follows the same principle, like the trick of giving four in the morning and three in the evening. In this way, one can win over the bold and talented, who fall into the trick without realizing it. Zhuangzi and Laozi saw that people everywhere are constrained by names and actualities, and are easily made glad or angry: in all sorts of ways, they are like the monkeys. The parable may not have been understood, so the point is made explicit: those who chase fame and profit are like monkeys being toyed with by a performer, accepting the rights and wrongs imposed by one who claims the Way without realizing it. The sage, too, can do nothing about this, so harmonizes things through affirmations and denials—all are shaped on the Potter’s Wheel. To rest in the Heavenly Potter’s Wheel is to let Heaven do the shaping. The sage, beyond names and actualities, follows one path; people, within names and actualities, follow another. This is what is meant by “walking two paths.”)
Among the people of ancient times, some had reached the highest degree of knowledge. How far did they reach? Some held that there had never been any things at all. This was the utmost, the complete limit; nothing could surpass it. The next held that things existed, but that there had never been any boundaries between them. The next held that there were boundaries, but that there had never been any affirmations or denials. Once affirmations and denials become manifest, the Dao is diminished…
(Note: The final phrase is supplemented with “the Dao is diminished,” following the commonly transmitted continuation of the Zhuangzi.)
“Loss” is what makes the Great Dao appear deficient and allows partiality to arise. But are there really such things as “completion” and “loss”? Or are there, in fact, no such things at all?
The commentator Lin Xiyi says: Though these words begin with the opening of Heaven and Earth, anyone who understands the principle can see examples right before them. Before a thought arises, there is “nothing yet.” Once it arises, there is “something.” Because of that thought, we feel there is something and there is a self, and boundaries take shape. As self and things stand in opposition, likes and dislikes, anger and joy arise, and so do right and wrong. Looking back to the moment before the thought arose, one sees only turmoil in the heart: this is “the Dao is diminished and partiality takes shape.” Once the thought has passed, all is as before. Were there ever truly completion and loss?
Because there is completion and loss, there is the story of Zhao playing the zither; because there is no completion and loss, there is the story of Zhao not playing it. When Zhao Wen, a master of the zither, played, Shi Kuang, a master musician, kept time by striking with a baton, and Hui Shi, a master debater, leaned against a parasol tree as he argued, the talents of all three were considered to have reached their height in their time. Their stories are recorded among the accounts of their later years. They each cherished their own skill and thought themselves unlike other people. They wanted to make that skill clear and display it to others. But they forced into the light things they could not truly illuminate. So Gongsun Long, of Hui Shi’s school, ended his life in confusion over the “hard and white” debate, while Zhao Wen’s son could only tune the zither strings and could not carry on his father’s art.
Lu Xixing says: In general, achievement and loss are both inescapable. Zhao was famous for playing the zither, yet his son could not play a decent tune in his whole life. Shi Kuang, despite his intelligence, went blind and had to walk with a staff. The two of them embody “completion and loss.” Hui Shi, also known as Hui Shih, lived at the same time as Zhuangzi. Though he was exceptionally skilled at debate, he ended in confusion over “hard and white.” All of these are expressions of “the Dao being diminished.”
If one has no true achievement in a lifetime, can that be called “completion”? Yet if this does not count as completion, then even I count as complete. If this cannot be called completion, then neither things nor I can be complete. Thus the flickering, elusive radiance—the bewildering “completion and loss” mentioned above—is not something the noble person uses to clarify matters. Instead, they keep it in their heart as a lesson. This is what is meant by “keeping it in reserve.”
Brief notes on names and terms
- Zhao / Zhao Wen: A musician famed for playing the zither, presented here in connection with “completion and loss.”
- Shi Kuang: A famous musician of antiquity, said to have become blind later in life.
- Hui Shi (Hui Zi): A contemporary of Zhuangzi, known for debates on “hard and white” and “sameness and difference.”
- “Hard and white”: A debate associated with Gongsun Long’s school, concerning whether qualities such as hardness and whiteness can be discussed separately from things such as stone and horse.
This passage comes from the Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence (Nanhua zhenjing zhushu). It further develops Zhuangzi’s discussions of “completion and non-completion,” “knowing and not knowing,” and related ideas. The author first takes up the preceding passage, saying that both “completion” and “non-completion” point toward understanding the Dao. If one believes oneself to have understood, one may still remain within “non-completion”; thus neither people nor things can be said to have achieved anything truly complete. “The radiance that wavers between doubt and certainty” describes a glimmer whose status is hard to determine, like the difficulty of judging the firing time when refining elixirs. What the sage seeks is to apply this seemingly ordinary principle with clear and thorough understanding.
The author then stresses “understanding through clarity”: to understand the human way, one must first understand the Way of Heaven, especially the cycle expressed in “the moon first gives birth to light, then first gives birth to shadow”—as the moon passes from darkness to brightness and from brightness back to darkness. When Lü Zu was once asked for the secret of longevity, he pointed toward the bright moon at the edge of the sky. The Patriarch Bodhidharma likewise said, “Water is in the Yangtze; the moon is in the sky.” Both were pointing to the deeper meaning of “understanding through clarity.” Is the discussion of “understanding through clarity” here ultimately of the same kind as the principle discussed earlier, or is it different? To cling blindly to the distinction between “same kind” and “different kind” is to remain where one was before. Elixir texts often say, “Kun and Qian are of the same kind; the Weaving Maiden and the Herd Boy are of the same kind; woman and man are of the same kind.” These statements all explain that Yin and Yang are of a kind. What appears to be different is, in truth, one thing, each aspect of which contains Yin and Yang. Once one understands that woman takes man as her counterpart, one also understands the subtle truth that the sun and moon are of the same kind and are not separate from one another.
The passage then turns to a series of questions about “beginning” and “what has not yet begun”: there is a beginning, a beginning that has not yet begun, and what has not yet begun even to be that beginning; there is “being” and “nonbeing,” a “nonbeing” that has not yet begun, and even what has not yet begun to be that “nonbeing.” Suddenly, “being” and “nonbeing” both appear. “Nonbeing” inherently contains “being,” while “being” also gives rise to “nonbeing.” Clinging to the distinction between “being” and “nonbeing” makes realization difficult. Only by clinging to neither extreme can one pass from “being and nonbeing giving rise to one another” into a numinous state of emptiness and unite with the Dao. Through a succession of questions that build upon one another, this passage guides readers from everyday success and failure, and from categories of Yin and Yang, toward an understanding of the fundamental law by which Heaven and Earth come into being and being and nonbeing arise from each other. It ultimately points to the essential practice of elixir cultivation: seeing the numinous in the ordinary and maintaining the proper firing time amid doubt and certainty.
Yet I do not know which truly counts as “being” and which as “nonbeing.” Now that I have spoken, I do not know whether what I have said counts as “having been said” or “not having been said.”
(The commentary traces a series of levels from “the Great Beginning” and “before there was ever a beginning” to “the beginningless,” the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji), and the Non-Ultimate (Wuji). First there is “before there was ever a beginning”; beyond that lies the “beginningless.” There is no separate “beginninglessness of the beginningless” beyond it. The Supreme One, Laozi, says that everything in heaven and earth that has form is an illusion: what is illusory turns from “being” to “nonbeing” in an instant. Yet there must be something that governs it all, so we still do not know which of being and nonbeing truly is. Now that I have spoken about such things as “the alike and the unlike,” I do not know whether others understand me, or whether what I have said counts as “speaking” or “not speaking.”)
Nothing in the world is greater than the tip of an autumn hair, while Mount Tai is small. Nothing lives longer than a child who dies in infancy, while Pengzu, who lived eight hundred years, died young. Heaven and earth came into being with me, and the myriad things form one body with me. If we are already one, can anything more be said? If we have already spoken of being one, can we avoid speaking? The moment we say “one,” speech and “one” become two. Add two to one, and they become three. With this, even arithmetic cannot carry the count to its end—how much less can ordinary speech do so? If speaking from “nonbeing” to “being” already takes us as far as three, what of speaking from the “being” that was there from the start to other kinds of “being”? There is no need to force things into a single whole; let each thing be as it is.
(Commentary: The discussion of “being” above is not a familiar formula repeated by ordinary people. “The tip of an autumn hair is great; Mount Tai is small” does not mean that the hair is truly great and Mount Tai truly small. It means that the hair can contain things, while Mount Tai cannot. “The child who dies young lives long; Pengzu dies young” means that where there is life, there is death, and where there is no life, there is no death. The child who dies young has already entered the realm beyond life and death; Pengzu’s life ends after eight hundred years. The child is not truly long-lived, nor is Pengzu truly short-lived. Heaven, earth, and humanity are called the Three Powers. Since I came into being alongside heaven and earth, heaven and earth are not uniquely long-lived, nor am I uniquely short-lived. Though human beings are one among the myriad things, if the myriad things and I are one, then the myriad things are not many and I am not few. These are states that Zhuangzi and Laozi embodied in their own lives, becoming one with heaven, earth, and the myriad things. In themselves, they need no words; yet once expressed in language, they cannot be left entirely unspoken.
A Vernacular Interpretation of the Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence
The One gives rise to Two, Two gives rise to Three, and Three gives rise to the myriad things. Generation continues without end; even the most ingenious calendar cannot count it all. From “Nonbeing” one can pass into “Being,” and onward into realms beyond counting. How much more so when proceeding from “Being” to “Being”—how could there be an end? Nothing between Heaven and Earth ultimately fails to return to “Nonbeing.” “Nonbeing” can contain all that exists; this is why it is said that “Nonbeing goes everywhere and reaches everything; it is nothing, yet nothing is absent from it.”
“It follows from this.” These six characters sum up the whole Nanhua—that is, the Zhuangzi. First there is the Limitless, and then the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji). Anyone who speaks of the Dao should begin with the word “Nonbeing.” Immortals and Buddhas can both take “Nonbeing” as their foundation. The Classic of Clarity and Stillness says to look inward at the mind until it clings to nothing; the Diamond Sutra says to bring forth the mind without dwelling on appearances. In this way one can attain long life. Confucians often focus their efforts on “Being,” but do not ask where “Being” ultimately leads.
The Dao has never been confined within fixed boundaries, and words have never had a fixed standard. For this reason, boundaries were drawn (zhen, meaning borders or divisions).
Let us speak of these divisions: there is left and right, order and righteousness, distinction and disputation, competition and contention. These are called the Eight Virtues.
(The Dao is something no one can grasp or divide into separate enclosures, just as words have no fixed form. During the Warring States period, many people discussed the Dao, each founding a school of its own: Confucian and Mohist views of right and wrong, the rights and wrongs of the various schools, the disputes between the Great Way of the Golden Elixir and heterodox paths. There was left and right, with each side clinging to one extreme; there were also order, righteousness, distinction, disputation, competition, and contention, each with its own reasoning. Paths branched into further paths, and each school defended its own position, yielding to none. They called these the Eight Virtues; I call them the Eight Boundaries—eight divisions, eight forms of partiality.)
Beyond the Six Directions (east, west, south, north, above, and below), the sage preserves things without discussing them. Within the Six Directions, the sage discusses things without judging them. The Spring and Autumn Annals, which records the governance of past ages, expresses the aspirations of former kings; the sage offers judgments without disputing. Thus, within what is distinguished, there is what is not distinguished; within what is debated, there is what is not debated. Why? The sage keeps the principles within the heart, while ordinary people argue and show off to one another. So within what is debated, there is also what is “not seen”—the whole is lost in the struggle to win.
(Immortals and Buddhas roam beyond the Six Directions, while sages roam within them. To preserve things without discussing them means that those concerned with governing the world need not be told at length about teachings of transcendence. To discuss without judging is to speak about things without passing severe judgment on them. To offer judgments without disputing is to assess things without engaging in verbal combat.)
Not engaging in argument is a skill of governing the world; it should not be used as empty talk to stir up public sentiment. The Spring and Autumn Annals is a book that observes the rise and fall of an age and carries forward the intentions of the former kings. Its concern is to praise and condemn the ways of the world, without getting caught up in mechanical distinctions between individual words. A single word of praise or blame can reach from princes and nobles above to the peoples beyond the borders below, and must never be applied carelessly or as a mere pretense. This means that the Dao is everywhere and has no boundaries. Yet within “making distinctions” there is also “making no distinctions,” and within “making no distinctions” there is also “making distinctions.” These are the distinctions ordinary people perceive. What they think they cannot see is that the “eye” is still there.
The Great Dao makes no claims for itself; the Great Disputation does not speak; great benevolence is not benevolence; great integrity does not defer; and great courage does not injure. Here, “making claims” means promoting oneself through names and appearances. “Not deferring” means neither contending nor withdrawing in the pursuit of fame and profit. If the Dao insists on being named, it is no longer the manifest Dao. If the Great Disputation relies on many words, it falls short. If benevolence is fixed as a constant form of benevolence, it cannot be great benevolence. If integrity merely maintains an outward appearance of purity, it loses trust. If courage carries an intent to harm, it destroys itself.
When the Dao seeks only to make itself manifest, it is no longer the Great Dao; when disputation relies only on speech, it falls short; when benevolence is clung to as a constant state, it can no longer fulfill itself; when integrity seeks only an outward appearance of purity, it loses trust; and when courage is coupled with a desire to injure, it ceases to be courage. The first five qualities—making no claims, not speaking, not being benevolent, not deferring, and not injuring—are like the circle: fluid and without fixed angles. The latter five—insisting on manifesting, disputing, constancy, purity, and force—turn toward the square: they expose their edges, as if trying to become square, and can no longer turn freely.
Therefore, to stop where one does not know is the utmost attainment. Who can know the disputation that does not speak, or the Dao that is not proclaimed? To know this is called the Heavenly Treasury, a storehouse of nature: it can be filled without becoming full and drawn from without being exhausted, yet its source is unknown. This is called Preserving the Light: keeping radiance within, without displaying its use. What is square is easy to recognize, but it is not the ultimate. The circle may not be recognized by people; hence the saying: to stop at what people do not know is to reach the utmost.
Speechlessness as argument, silence as the Way—Those who are truly accomplished need not speak of benevolence and righteousness, integrity and shame, or courage and strength. If someone assumes that they “know,” how could a shallow mind fathom them? This is called the Heavenly Treasury (an inner storehouse of wisdom, inexhaustible in its use). The commentary says: a cup may not be full, yet one can draw from it without end; it is like a world hidden inside a grain of millet, or the universe cooking in half a pot. How could ordinary people know where it comes from? Those who follow the Way deepen their De ever more while keeping their brilliance concealed; their Way grows higher while their spiritual power remains hidden. This is called Preserving the Light (harboring one’s radiance and keeping it subdued).
Long ago, Yao asked Shun, “I want to attack Zong, Kuai, and Xu’ao, but when I face south to govern, I cannot set my mind at ease. Why is that?” Shun replied, “The people of those three states still live among the mugwort and wild grasses. If you could let go of this concern in your heart, why cling to it?” He also said, “In ancient times, ten suns appeared together, illuminating all things. How much more so for one whose De surpasses the sun!” (The Son of Heaven faces south like the sun in the sky. Yao wanted to attack small states hidden among mugwort and wormwood, places the sunlight did not reach. There cannot truly be ten suns in the sky; rather, clouds cover some of the ten directions while leaving others clear, so the sun shines in some places but not in others. If all ten directions were cloudless, the suns would appear everywhere together and illuminate all things. If a sage’s De surpasses the sun, why would it fail to shine among the mugwort and wormwood, leaving him unable to set aside his concern for Zong, Kuai, and Xu’ao?)
Nie Que asked Wang Ni, “Do you know what all things have in common?” Wang Ni replied, “How could I know? Do you know what you do not know?” Nie Que asked, “How could I know? Then are all things without knowledge?” Wang Ni said, “How could I know! Even so, let me try to explain: how do I know that what I call knowing is not ignorance? How do I know that what I call ignorance is not knowledge?” (Things have their rights and wrongs, and people have what they know and what they do not know. If knowing and not knowing are both set aside, right and wrong become one, and things and self can be seen as equal.)
“Let me ask you this: when people live in damp places, their lower backs ache and their bodies become partly paralyzed, while fish are at ease there—is this not so? When people live in trees, they tremble with fear, while monkeys are at ease—is this not so? Which of these three knows where it is best to live? People eat livestock meat, elk and deer eat grass, cicadas drink pure dew, and mynah birds eat rotting mice—which of these four knows the right taste? Monkeys find female monkeys beautiful, elk and deer delight in graceful companions, and people admire Xi Shi—which of these three knows the right standard of beauty? Each is at ease in its own circumstances and puzzled by those of others. How could I know?”
Note: The original is a commentary on passages related to the Zhuangzi, addressing the relativity of equalizing things, finding a place to dwell, taste, and aesthetic judgment. Personal names, state names, and pronunciation notes follow conventional readings. To compare it with a specific chapter, such as “Discussion on Making All Things Equal,” please specify the edition for a line-by-line comparison.
Modern Interpretation
A person who raises elk feeds them tender grass, which centipedes consider delicious. Snakes and owls love to eat mice. Of these four creatures, which truly knows what “right flavor” is?
Gibbons and bian-dan (creatures with the body of a gibbon and the head of a dog; males are said to mate with female gibbons) consider that beautiful. Elk and deer mate with each other; loaches swim together with fish. Mao Qiang and Li Ji are beauties in human eyes. When fish see them, they dive into deep water; when birds see them, they soar high; when elk see them, they flee in haste, bleeding. Of these four, which knows what the world’s “right appearance” is?
From my own point of view, the beginnings of benevolence and righteousness and the dividing line between right and wrong are all tangled together. How can I tell who is right and who is wrong? (People and other creatures differ in their ways of living, eating, drinking, and judging beauty, and each gets only its own partial view. People think they have found what is “right,” but only in relation to other things. Seen from the Dao, having no fixed place is what makes a place; having no fixed taste is what makes flavor; having no fixed form of beauty is what makes beauty. These alone count as what is “right” in living, eating, drinking, and beauty. From my own point of view, where there is benevolence and righteousness there is also right and wrong, and within right and wrong there are further disputes over right and wrong. This is more tangled than differences among people and things in their ways of living, eating, drinking, and judging beauty. How, then, can I speak of making them equal?)
Nie Que said: “You do not know what is beneficial or harmful. Does the Perfect Person, then, also not know what is beneficial or harmful?”
Wang Ni said: “The Perfect Person has a complete Shen (spirit). A fire in a great marsh cannot burn him; the freezing of the Yellow River and the Han cannot make him cold. Sudden thunder that splits mountains and fierce winds that churn the sea cannot startle him. Such a person rides the clouds and mounts the sun and moon, roaming beyond the four seas. Life and death make no difference to him, much less such small matters as benefit and harm.” (Right and wrong are still small matters; life and death, benefit and harm are greater transformations of right and wrong. Anyone who has a way of living, eating, drinking, and seeing beauty is pleased when things go as desired and troubled when they do not. Only the Perfect Person has left the realm of existence and entered nonexistence. Alone, he lets his original Shen roam in the land of nowhere. Cold and heat cannot affect him; wind and thunder cannot shake him. He rises above the clouds and races with the sun and moon. Having already transcended Yin-Yang, what concern could he have with life and death? Having made compliance and resistance equal, what concern could he have with benefit and harm?)
Qu Quezi asked Chang Wuzi: “I heard the Master (Confucius) say that the sage is not enslaved by worldly affairs.”
(The passage that follows continues with the content after “affairs”; this section ends here.)
A Plain-Language Reading of the Annotations and Commentary on the True Scripture of Southern Florescence
(Not treating worldly gain and loss as one’s concern) Do not pursue gain or shun harm. Do not deliberately seek what you lack, and do not treat the Dao (the Way) as an external object to grasp at. “Speaking” and “not speaking”: what is called “speech that does not speak” is “speaking”; what is called “speaking that does not speak” is to speak without speaking. Only then can one roam beyond the dust and grime of the world. The Master considers this reckless talk—unsubstantial and careless—but I consider it the practice of the wondrous Dao. What do you think?
Changwuzi said: This is something the Yellow Emperor once heard and clearly perceived (“illumination” refers to seeing with the eyes and understanding in the heart). How could Qiu (Zhuangzi’s self-reference) possibly know it? Besides, you are reckoning far too soon: seeing an egg, you demand the night-watch call of a rooster; seeing a pellet, you expect roasted owl. I spoke to you rashly—you must not take it as a final judgment—and you listened rashly—you must not take it as true knowledge. What do you say?
“Leaning on the sun and moon” means relying on the principle by which the sun and moon give light; “holding the cosmos in one’s grasp” means embracing the workings of cosmic transformation; “being in accord with them” (the word for “accord” is pronounced wěn, meaning to fit together) means not being at odds with the sun, moon, or cosmos. “Settling in what is turbid and obscure” means resting in a place of utmost darkness and dimness; “honoring the lowly” means treating a humble servant as worthy of respect. The crowd toils busily, confined by petty intelligence, while the sage is simple and unknowing, like undifferentiated chaos. “Joining the ten thousand years into a single pure whole” conveys the idea found in the Daodejing of establishing a Son of Heaven and appointing the Three Dukes: becoming a unified whole, assisting the transformations of all things while remaining centered in oneness. Each thing is as it is, yet all things contain and mingle with one another. How can I know that delight in life is not delusion? How can I know that loathing death is not like losing one’s roots and failing to find the way home?
The commentator Lü Jifu said: The sage does not distinguish gain from harm, and so neither pursues nor avoids them. Having no sense of lack, the sage takes no pleasure in seeking. Finding nothing outside the Dao, the sage does not grasp at it. “Speaking” gives rise to “not speaking,” and “not speaking” gives rise to “speaking”; only my own heart can fully accord with this. To leave home in childhood is to become lost from one’s roots; to remain long in a foreign land is to fail to return.
Fuguizi said: Roaming beyond the dust and grime of the world is a matter of transcending the world; practicing the wondrous Dao means observing its mystery through desirelessness. Within the mystery is an opening: one must first find that opening before one can practice the wondrous Dao. Xuanyuan (the Yellow Emperor) once heard and illuminated this teaching, having received it from Guang Chengzi.
Background: This passage comes from a dialogue in the Zhuangzi tradition and its commentaries. Changwuzi criticizes the other speaker with the images of “seeing an egg and demanding a rooster’s night-watch call” and “seeing a pellet and expecting roasted owl,” suggesting that one is rushing to judgment before attaining the wondrous Dao. The account of the Yellow Emperor receiving the Dao from Guang Chengzi likewise shows that the practice of the wondrous Dao cannot be attained lightly.
A Commentary on Cultivating the Dao and Guangchengzi
The “Emperor” mentioned here most likely refers to the Yellow Emperor, who visited Guangchengzi to hear about the Dao and seek his instruction. Many people who have only just begun cultivation immediately demand immortality. They are like someone who sees an egg and expects to eat a roasted owl at once, or sees a pellet and expects a roast game bird: they have the timing and sequence all wrong, and are indulging in delusion. The words above are not spoken carelessly. If you cannot take them in, that is what it means to “listen deludedly.” How should a cultivator follow the waxing and waning of the sun and moon to cultivate the body? How should they grasp the rise and decline of all things in Heaven and Earth to nurture their nature? They must accord with the Great Dao and advance gradually. As for such obstacles as “confusion and dullness” and “taking the lowly for the honored”—reversing what is primary and secondary—these must first be set aside. To climb high, one must start from below: first break free from entanglements in worldly affairs, then one can move toward higher understanding.
Ordinary People and the Sage
Ordinary people are led along by worldly affairs every day, busy until death without ever escaping their grip. The word “chun” evokes a grass shoot just emerging from the earth, and here it describes a state of unspoiled innocence. The Sage guards this “innocent sprout,” preserving the Original Jing, Original Qi, and Original Shen—the Three Treasures of the human body, on which cultivation depends. The passage then uses an image from alchemy: the multitude are like countless sprouts. When a great cultivator enters the alchemical chamber to gather the ingredients, there must be someone directing the alchemical work; all proceed as if carrying out the command of the Son of Heaven. Once the results have been verified and matured, someone will eventually refine pure Yang and attain the wondrous Dao. This is true of all beings: each person inwardly contains a path that can lead to becoming an immortal or a Buddha, but does not know it. What worldly people cling to is life: they know they want to live, but not what true longevity is. What they fear is death: they know they dread it, but not that the dead may have a place to return to. Still less do they know to turn back and seek the “true self.” This is delusion within delusion.
The Story of Liji
Liji was the daughter of a lord from the land of Ai. When the state of Jin first took her, she wept until her clothes were soaked. But once she was in the palace, sharing the ruler’s bed and eating delicacies, she regretted having wept. How can we be sure that the dead do not regret having feared death so much and clung so tightly to life?
This passage uses Liji’s change of heart to show that, if one regards eating, drinking, and pleasure as joy, then to someone who has awakened to the Dao, they are already dust and decay—hard to endure even for a single day. Compared with such a way of living, even “death” seems more peaceful, let alone truly attaining long life and enduring vision. The earlier phrases “nothing is better than clarity,” “the pivot of the Dao,” “the treasury of Heaven,” “the wondrous Dao,” and “from myriad sprouts, one achieves purity” all point to the same idea: only the path of the Golden Elixir, through internal cultivation, can refine pure Yang from among the myriad possibilities.
Plain-language interpretation
Scriptural passage:
The Dao De Jing speaks of truths that transcend the ordinary world, intended to awaken those of the highest insight. The passage below—on regret, seeking life, dreaming and waking, distinguishing victory from defeat, the shadow without a fixed form, and the cycle of Zhou and the butterfly—speaks of worldly troubles, intended to awaken people of moderate and lesser capacities.
Those who dream of drinking wine weep in the morning; those who dream of weeping go hunting in the morning. While dreaming, they do not know they are dreaming; within a dream, they may dream again, as when someone interprets a dream. Only after waking do they know it was a dream.
One must attain great awakening to know that human life is a great dream. The foolish believe themselves already awakened and secretly congratulate themselves, thinking they know. Are you a ruler, or a herdsman? How stubborn you are! Confucius, you and I are both dreaming. When I say that you are dreaming, that too is a dream. These words are therefore called “paradoxical” (meaning ultimate: the most profound and mysterious truth).
In ten thousand generations’ time, if we encounter a great sage, anyone who understands this principle will be as though meeting them sooner or later.
Commentary:
Drinking wine belongs to Yang; weeping belongs to Yin; hunting also belongs to Yang. What is Yang in a dream must turn into Yin, so weeping is its counterpart. What is Yin in a dream must turn into Yang, so hunting is its counterpart. This is not only the principle of Yin-Yang, but also the pattern by which sorrow and joy answer one another.
For ages, no one has been able to resolve the question of dreaming and waking. Zhuangzi clarified it in just a few lines. Literati who read it treat it like a play: they either chat about it or use it as material for writing. There are countless people who are truly dreaming. How many know they are dreaming? Very few.
Who knows that the perfected person and the infant alike dwell in an undifferentiated state, with their bodily apertures unopened, neither awake nor dreaming? Sages, immortals, and Buddhas have escaped the net. They are pure and awake, awake but without dreams. Those with frenzied aspirations seek to transcend the ordinary world, but their actions fall short; they are half awake and half dreaming.
Today, people in the realm of fame and profit are deceived by the Creator and feel no regret. Later generations lament those who came before; those who come after lament those who come later still. Dreams follow dreams, and laments follow laments. I do not know when awakening will come, or who will awaken. These words are therefore called “paradoxical.” If we encounter a great sage ten thousand generations from now, why must we see them face to face? Anyone who understands the principle of dreaming and waking will be as though meeting them sooner or later.
“Encounter” means meeting or coming across something. Sooner or later, everyone encounters this sort of thing, like the old saying, “Seeing Yao in the soup and Shun on the wall”: seeing Yao in a bowl of broth and Shun on a wall—visions hazy and unreal, with everyone telling a different story.
Since you and I have begun arguing: if you defeat me and I cannot match you, does that mean you are right and I am wrong? If I defeat you and you cannot match me, does that mean I am right and you are wrong? In the end, are you and I right while other people are wrong, or are you wrong and I right? Or are we both right, or both wrong? You and I cannot understand each other. People are already lost in obscurity and confusion (darkness: muddled and unclear, describing people as if they were in a dream)—so whom should we call to decide right and wrong?
Should we ask someone like you to decide? If that person is on your side, how could they judge fairly? Should we ask someone like me? If they are on my side, how could they judge fairly? (To speak of a dream within a dream: only after ten thousand generations might someone appear who can distinguish dreaming from waking. Those arguing at the time may quarrel until they are hoarse without reaching a verdict. You are like him; if you win… There is no fixed right or wrong, just as in a dream within a dream: what is right or wrong, what is both right and wrong, cannot be settled by anyone who understands the difference between dreaming and waking. Everyone is still in the darkness of the “dream.” We might seek someone “awake” to set things straight, but if that person is awake and I am awake, then neither you nor I can count as “the awake one”—and someone like you or me cannot serve as judge either.)
Should we ask someone unlike both you and me to decide? If they are unlike us, how could they judge? Should we ask someone like both you and me? If they are like us, how could they judge? So you, I, and other people cannot understand one another. Can we still wait for someone else? (You and I are already in a dream; someone unlike us may also be dreaming, so how could they judge? And someone like us has not yet awakened—how could they judge? If no one understands the others or the difference between dreaming and waking, whom else can we wait for?)
What does it mean to “harmonize things by means of the Heavenly Equalizer”? The Heavenly Equalizer is the natural boundary that places things on equal footing. Let “this” and “not this,” “so” and “not so” dissolve. If “this” were truly “this,” it would differ from “not this,” and there would be no further argument. If “so” were truly “so,” it would differ from “not so,” and again there would be no further argument. The various claims that emerge depend on one another, yet also seem not to depend on one another. Use the Heavenly Equalizer to bring them into harmony, and follow their endless unfolding (endless unfolding: extending without limit, with no end to what can be said) through the course of life. Forget the years; forget principles. Stir yourself within the limitless (the limitless: that which has no end). That is why words are entrusted to “the limitless.” (Ordinary people cannot easily agree on the difference between dreaming and waking. At the time, the disputants rise up in numbers, yet cannot convince one another. Whether you win or lose, whether I win or lose, there is no fixed measure of right and wrong, just as in a dream within a dream. What is right or wrong, what is both right and wrong, cannot be settled by anyone who understands the difference between dreaming and waking: everyone is still in the darkness of the “dream.” We might seek someone awake to set things straight, but if that person is awake and I am awake, then neither you nor I can count as awake; someone like you or me cannot set things straight either.)
Each person bears their own burden, and no one is willing to yield, because everyone belongs to the category of “human.” Humans are not Heaven, so we must use the way of perfect harmony to reconcile the natural boundaries. This is the foundation of our nature and life.
In the world, there must be fixed “right” and “wrong,” fixed “so” and “not so.” If we say there is no fixed right or wrong, nothing can be distinguished. Must the transformations of nature and life, and the appearances of sound and color, then take place without any ruler to govern them? Can sound and color truly work that way? So one who truly understands this principle must seek its beginnings within nature and life themselves. Once the true beginnings are recognized, let every transformation unfold naturally until the years run out. I need only use the natural boundaries to bring things into harmony; I myself remain unchanged. Forget the years, and life and death become one continuous course. Forget right and duty, and what may be and what may not be become connected. “End” means the ultimate, the final point. To settle in what has neither limit nor end is to dwell in the “village of nowhere.” Thus, entrusting oneself to what has no limit or end is to lie at ease beneath it.
(The Second Patriarch, Huike, asked Bodhidharma to settle his mind. Bodhidharma said, “Bring me your mind, and I will settle it for you.” The Second Patriarch replied, “I have searched for my mind, but it cannot be found.” Bodhidharma said, “I have now settled your mind.” That is the meaning.)
The Shadow Beyond the Shadow asked the Shadow, “A moment ago you were walking, and now you have stopped. A moment ago you were sitting, and now you have stood up. Why do you have no independent resolve?”
The Shadow replied, “Do I act this way because I depend on something? And does what I depend on act this way because it depends on something else? Do I depend on the belly scales of a snake or the wings of a cicada? (A snake moves by means of the scales beneath its belly, and a cicada flies by means of its wings. But the scales and wings cannot move or fly on their own; surely there must be something that governs them.) How can I know why things are so? And how can I know why they are not so? (The Shadow depends on the body, and the body depends on transformation, just as the snake’s scales and the cicada’s wings do. How could I know why things are so, or why they are not so?)”
Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he had become a butterfly, fluttering freely—a butterfly indeed. He felt happy and content, utterly pleased with himself, and did not know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and unmistakably he was Zhuang Zhou. He did not know whether Zhuang Zhou had dreamed of becoming a butterfly, or whether the butterfly had dreamed of becoming Zhuang Zhou.
(In Zhuang Zhou’s view, he had become a butterfly in last night’s dream. But perhaps the butterfly, too, regarded its awakening this morning as a dream?)
A Plain-Language Interpretation of the Commentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence
I realized that I was Zhuang Zhou dreaming. There must be a distinction between Zhou and the butterfly. (Before, I was a butterfly in a dream; now I am Zhuang Zhou, awake. So the two must be different.)
This is called the transformation of things. (Heaven and Earth are not themselves “things,” and so they can bring all things into being; they do not themselves “transform,” and so they can transform and nurture all things. If things can transform, then surely human beings—the most spiritually perceptive among things—can transform too. Why should they be unable to? Zhuangzi and Laozi clearly use “things” to awaken people, urging them to break through the boundary between dreaming and waking. In dreams, people can change because the hun and po interact. The po governs transformation; the hun does not. A person who has the Dao must first extinguish the po, then allow the hun to flourish; only then can I alone govern the myriad changes. Yet people do not extinguish the po. They live out their lives alternating between waking by day and dreaming by night, until even what they call “being awake” becomes one great dream. How sad.)
Master Fuguizi said: Looking up and down between Heaven and Earth, what is greatest? Only emptiness is greatest. Emptiness can bear Heaven and Earth and contain the myriad things. Within emptiness there are things, and among things, the greatest is the mind. This mind stands above Heaven and Earth, and so it can look down on the myriad things; it encompasses what lies beyond Heaven and Earth, and so it can shape and create the myriad things.
Nanguo Ziqi “seemed to have lost his companion”: this means there is no distinction between self and other. “I have lost myself” means there is no sense of “I.” Before discussing the equality of things, the text speaks first of the sounds of Heaven, Earth, and human beings. This concerns the unevenness of things as they are. The breath of the Great Mass is the sound of Heaven. When it enters the hollows of a great tree, a hundred spans around, the hollows take different shapes and produce different sounds; this is why the sound is named after the Earth. The sound of human beings comes from panpipes, while the sound of Heaven is summed up as “blowing upon the ten thousand things.” The blower is the wind; without wind, the myriad things would not come to life. Human beings are the most spiritually perceptive of things, yet their many forms and changes are unequal because the True Lord is absent. If people grasp the nature of the True Lord, they will not rely on their own minds to decide what is right; where could the Dao go and not be present?
When looking up at the Way of Heaven, one should observe the principle of the moon’s first emergence of light and the moon’s first emergence of shadow—what is meant by “nothing is better than clarity.”
On the third day, the moon appears in the western quarter, marking the start of its growth; on the eighteenth, it withdraws toward the western quarter, marking the start of its decline. This is called the pivot of the Dao. One who grasps this pivot dwells at the center of the circle and responds to the inexhaustible. The transformations of Heaven and Earth are then within one’s grasp; the myriad things can all be brought to completion by one’s hand, just as reins in my hand guide a horse.
Brief notes on key terms:
- The transformation of things: Transformation between things, and between people and things, as in the transformation between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly.
- True Lord: In Daoism, the genuine “self” that governs body and mind.
- Sounds of Heaven, Earth, and human beings: Three kinds of “sound” used as metaphors in the Zhuangzi, “Discussion on Making All Things Equal.”
- Pivot of the Dao: The crucial hinge for grasping the Great Dao.
- The moon’s first emergence of light and the moon’s first emergence of shadow: An ancient account of the waxing and waning of Yin and Yang based on the phases of the moon.
“Riding the horses” means allowing whatever the world calls acceptable or unacceptable, right or wrong, to return in the end to one and the same pattern of order. Let each person and each life give rise to its own joys and angers, and judge right and wrong in its own way: all can still be heard and come to rest in the “Heavenly Balance,” the equilibrium of nature.
If we trace things back to the time before there were things, before there were even boundaries, then right and wrong did not exist. How, then, could there be success or failure? Even the finest playing of the zither, the finest composition of music, or the sharpest debate ultimately remains like Zhuangzi’s arguments about “hardness and whiteness” or the “white horse”: one could argue them for a lifetime and still find no true success or failure.
That is why Zhuangzi speaks of the “glimmer of doubt”—a light that seems bright and dim at once, elusive and hard to grasp. It is this that the sage seeks to experience and hold. The commentary also interprets it in terms of cultivation: in the human realm, it may be compared to “the image without form,” something that seems to exist and yet does not; in the heavenly realm, it is called “the birth of illumination,” which is the “timing of the fire” in Neidan (internal alchemy). Woman and man form a pair, no different from the sun and moon. Follow the thought from “having a beginning” to “there never having been a beginning,” and it becomes clear that before anything began, everything was already as it is.
Those who truly understand these words will know that “a world is contained in a grain of millet”: a hair’s breadth need not be considered small, nor Mount Tai large. Without birth, there can be no death. So dying young does not mean having a short life, and Pengzu’s longevity does not mean that he truly lived long. The source of all things follows the pattern “One gives birth to Two, Two to Three, and Three to the myriad things.” This is where the realm of “being” reaches its limit. Effort made only within “being” often gets nowhere; one must enter by way of “nonbeing.” Seek the primordial “Mother Qi,” and one can speak with sages beyond the Six Directions; if one remains within the familiar knowledge of the Six Directions, it is difficult to speak fully of the matter.
Thus, “rest where you do not know” means what was called earlier the glimmer of doubt and the pivot of the Dao: stop where understanding ends, and do not force a guess. Master Zhang once said, “No matter how much your intelligence surpasses that of Yan Hui and Min Ziqian, if you have not met a true teacher, do not make guesses.” The “Heavenly Storehouse” is another name for the “Mysterious Female,” the wondrous feminine gate and source. Heaven, earth, people, and things all arise from it; it is also the “aperture” on which becoming an immortal or a Buddha depends. It is empty yet inexhaustible, and the more it moves, the more it produces. It never fills to overflowing or runs dry through use, and its coming and going cannot be seen. One may follow it, but one cannot explain it as ordinary knowledge. When it should be concealed, it should not be revealed: this is called “preserving the light.”
How could ordinary people understand? “Knowing” is not the sort of knowledge that boasts and talks at length; those who love to speak often do not know. Nor is “not knowing” mere ignorance; those who truly know are the ones who do not love to speak. Everyone thinks they possess the world’s “right position, right taste, and right color.” Seen through the eyes of the Dao, however, only between “nonbeing” and “being”—in the “position of no position, taste of no taste, and color of no color”—can one speak of riding the clouds and the Qi, mounting the sun and moon, rising beyond life and death and gain and loss, and wandering outside the dust of the world. These words are no wild invention. They follow the Supreme One’s path of “having no desire, one observes its mystery,” and describe the realm that the Yellow Emperor personally heard of and witnessed.
To clasp the cosmos and roam with the transformations of creation is to escape obscurity and rise high, beginning from below.
People know that all things return to the One, pure Yang. But who can assist in the work of creation? Zhuangzi and Laozi saw life and death as one path, and the loss of the strange, the pleasing, and the hateful as returning to one place. One may live or die, yet it is unbearable to let people spend their whole lives dreaming without waking. So the “Great Awakening” must awaken them from the “Great Dream.” The paradoxical exchanges between Ning and Meng still look to sages of ages to come to understand their meaning and meet them, sooner or later. People of our time do not believe it. They argue with me, even contesting victory and defeat, right and wrong, orthodox and deviant, and still do not accept my account of dreaming and awakening. What can I rely on? I can only harmonize with them through Heaven’s equalizing perspective. The beginnings of benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and wisdom arise in the faintest glimmer, then spread endlessly; they do not run their course even over a lifetime. In time one forgets cold and age; the essence of meaning enters the spirit, and meaning itself is forgotten. One is stirred into the boundless: Bodhi was never a tree; it dwells in the boundless, where my home lies deep among the white clouds.
“Wang” means “nothing,” and “liang” means “two”; together, wangliang means “nonduality.” A shadow has no independent nature: it depends on a form to exist. When the form is upright, the shadow is upright; when the form is crooked, the shadow is crooked. Thus both what is so and what is not so arise here. If a Daoist wants to cast off the shadow, it is better to cast off the form first. Earlier, the text said that if the whole world is a great dream, why toil away one’s life? Yet, fearing that people would not awaken, it also set forth a “true dream” to wake them. The butterfly in flight has no distant purpose; once it enters Zhuang Zhou’s dream, it knows only the joy of dreaming, confined within the dream. Suddenly it wakes. From Zhuang Zhou’s side, last night’s dream was the butterfly; from the butterfly’s side, its present awakening may also be a dream. Zhuang Zhou does not know where one ends and the other begins. To distinguish Zhuang Zhou from the butterfly, then, one must understand the distinction between dream and awakening. This is called the transformation of things. How could a foreigner fail to undergo transformation? One must let the corporeal soul perish and the ethereal soul flourish, roaming in a realm without dreams. Would this not make one a transformed being from the Western Regions?
Inner Chapter: The Essentials of Nurturing Life, Third
People treat the mind and body as a ruler, and the four limbs and entire frame as servants who serve that ruler. The spirit, in turn, is the ruler’s master. Whenever people pursue pleasures of sound, color, smell, and taste, they say they are nourishing the body.
Too many people live out their lives without knowing how to preserve their own “master,” and lose the true master within them. Once the master is gone, whom can the subordinate depend on? This shows that what people ordinarily call “nurturing life” is not true nurturing at all. Only by tending well to the “master of nurturing life” can one be said to know how to nurture life.
Human life is limited, while the pursuit of knowledge has no end (a person may not live a hundred years, yet is often burdened by worries spanning a thousand years). To use a finite life in pursuit of boundless knowledge is already dangerous. To be exhausted by what one knows, yet try to remedy this by knowing still more, is a grave peril indeed.
Do good without deliberately seeking fame; do evil without deliberately violating the law. Make “following the Du vessel” your constant practice (the Du vessel is one of the body’s two channels, the Ren and Du. It rises from the tailbone along the spine, passes through the Three Passes to the Mudball Palace, then descends at the front to meet the Ren vessel at the Yellow Court). In this way, you can preserve your body, safeguard your life, care for your parents, and live out your years (without damaging your body and thereby bringing shame on your parents; living whole, and returning after completing your allotted span).
Cook Ding was butchering an ox for Lord Wenhui. Wherever his hand touched, his shoulder leaned, his foot stepped, and his knee pressed, there came the sounds of huo and xiang, and the ringing of the blade as it sliced—every sound in perfect harmony, keeping time with the “Dance of the Mulberry Grove” and matching the “Jingshou” music (the name of a dance and music from the state of Song; a piece from the “Xianchi” suite). Lord Wenhui said, “Ah, wonderful! How can your skill have reached such a level?” Cook Ding put down his knife and replied, “What I love is the Dao (the Way of long life and immortality—the same Dao meant by ‘hearing the Dao in the morning’); it has advanced beyond mere skill (the skill came from learning the Dao; the story of butchering an ox that follows is an allegory for the Great Dao). At first, when I butchered an ox, all I saw was the whole ox (and found it difficult to see how to take it apart). After three years, I no longer saw the whole ox…”
A Modern Interpretation
Seeing the whole ox—at a glance, he can tell where to place the knife and how to take it apart.
At this stage, I (Cook Ding’s way of referring to himself) rely on spirit meeting—my spirit joining with the ox’s body in an intuitive response—not on staring fixedly with my eyes. My sense organs—eyes, ears, hands, and feet—have all become still. Only the spirit moves unseen.
The knife follows the ox’s natural patterns, its inborn textures and pathways. I cut into the large gaps between the joints and guide the knife into the large hollows within them, following the structure as it is. I never hack or cut against it.
However refined my skill, I never touch the tough knots where sinews and bones meet, much less the large bones. In other words, the knife moves only through the open spaces, with plenty of room to spare.
A good cook replaces his knife once a year because he uses it to slice. An ordinary cook replaces his every month because he uses it to chop through bone.
My knife, on the other hand, has been in use for nineteen years. I have taken apart several thousand oxen, yet its edge is as sharp as when it was first taken from the whetstone.
There are spaces between the joints, while the knife’s edge is almost without thickness. When that nearly hair-thin edge enters a space, there is ample room for it to move. So, even after nineteen years, its edge is still as sharp as if newly honed.
(The commentary makes the point explicit here: The affairs of the world have their own natural patterns. If I follow them instead of forcing my way through, my mind remains at ease.)
Even so, whenever I encounter a tangle, where sinews and bones are knotted together, I recognize how difficult it will be and grow wary. I focus my gaze, slow my movements, and guide the knife with the lightest touch. With a sudden swish, the ox comes apart, as easily as a clod of earth falling to the ground. I stand with my knife in hand, look around, and feel satisfied. Then I wipe the knife clean and put it away.
(The commentary adds: Feeling satisfied corresponds to “spirit meeting,” while cleaning and putting away the knife corresponds to slicing and chopping. This passage uses the ox as a metaphor for someone who, in adversity, responds in keeping with the circumstances, remains inwardly undisturbed, and, once the matter has passed, is as if nothing had happened.)
King Wenhui (King Hui of Liang) said, “Well said! From what Cook Ding has just told me…”
《Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence》
I. Finding Nourishment for Life (The Ox-Cutting Parable and the View of the Dao)
Finding nourishment for life
Lü Jifu says: Because things have form, they obstruct the Dao; because the Dao is empty, it can pass through all things. Before people hear the Dao, all they see are concrete things. After hearing it, all they see is the Dao. “The spirit encounters without looking with the eyes” is a metaphor for one who has heard the Dao and joins with it in the heart, rather than relying on intellectual knowledge to “know” it. Intellectual knowledge still makes distinctions.
Li Shibiao says: Things are not fixed “things”; their nature can itself let go of attachment. The Dao reaches everywhere, so why seek to “dissect” anything further? Zhuangzi’s ox-cutter is detached from things and stills his mind: he has never seen the ox. He follows empty space and the natural contours, and the blade has never been put to work. This, too, is “dissecting without dissection.” Viewed from the Dao, there is no dissection within dissection: when there is no obstruction, one does not even know there is anything to dissect. Within obstruction there is no obstruction: unless there is dissection, obstruction does not arise. From the butcher’s perspective, the ordinary butchers are cutting through obstructions; from the ordinary butchers’ perspective, the butcher is obstructing their way of cutting. When both dissection and obstruction are let go, only emptiness remains. If one wanders beyond the myriad things by means of this Dao, how could anything obstruct one?
II. Gongwen Xuan Sees the Right Marshal
Gongwen Xuan saw the Right Marshal and exclaimed in surprise, “Who is this? Why does he have only one foot?”
Someone asked, “Was he born that way, or did someone cut off his foot and make him like this?”
The reply was, “It was Heaven, not a person. Heaven made him this way; he grew only one foot.” (Though having a foot amputated is plainly the work of people, it is called “Heaven” here to say that he was born this way, destined from the outset to have only one foot.)
A person’s form and appearance are bestowed by Heaven. (Heaven gives form, and the Dao gives appearance; by rights, one should have two feet.) From this we can tell that it was “Heaven,” not “a person.” (Everyone else has two feet, while he alone has one. Knowing that no person did this, one should not blame Heaven or other people. Knowing it came from Heaven, one should accept one’s allotted fate. Those who accept their fate do not let external things unsettle their hearts and spirits.)
III. The Pheasant in the Marsh and the Cage
A wild pheasant in the marsh takes a peck every ten paces and a drink every hundred paces. (Unrestrained and free—how content it is!) It has no need to worry about being kept and fed.
If it is raised in a cage, (it is confined by people and no longer has to worry about finding food and water, but how could that compare with the pleasure of roaming the marsh, pecking every ten paces and drinking every hundred?)
Though the spirit commands the body like a ruler, (though the spirit sits at the center as king and commands the body,) it wears itself out and grows less capable each day; its spirit grows weary. It is less at ease than the body’s parts.
IV. Lao Dan Dies, and Qin Shi Pays His Respects
Lao Dan died. (In this parable, a person has lost the ancestral Qi.) Qin Shi went to pay his respects. (He mourned the loss of the ancestral Qi.) After wailing three times, he left.
Note: This chapter uses the commentary and subcommentary format: it first cites the classic, then gives explanations by Lü Jifu, Li Shibiao, and others. The modern rendering stays as close as possible to the original meaning. Proper names such as Butcher Ding, the ordinary butchers, Gongwen Xuan, the Right Marshal, and Qin Shi are retained, with brief background notes in parentheses.
A Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence: A Plain-Language Reading
After the disciples came out, they said, “Wasn’t that our teacher’s friend?”
(Lü Jifu explains: In the rites of mourning, one should weep for the dead and comfort the living. To cry out only three times is to have mourned the dead, but it seems insufficiently sorrowful. To leave without saying a word also seems to show no feeling for the living. The disciples therefore doubted that he could be called a friend.)
Zhuangzi said, “Yes, he is my friend.”
They asked again, “Was it proper to offer condolences that way?”
Zhuangzi said, “Yes.”
At first I thought he was a man who understood the Way. Now I see that he does not. When I went in to offer condolences, the old people wept as though they had lost a son (“son” refers to Yang energy and vitality), and the young people wept as though they had lost a mother (“mother” refers to Yin energy and the source). For them to have gathered there, someone must have been speaking kind words without deliberately trying to do so; the words simply came. And someone must have been weeping without deliberately trying to do so; the tears simply came. This goes against the order of Heaven, departs from genuine feeling, and forgets what was originally received. The ancients called this “punishment for fleeing Heaven”: forgetting the inherent nature one possessed before there was anything at all, and rising and falling with worldly emotions. Such a person is not a perfected person; one who is not perfected goes against Heaven.
His coming was determined by the course of time; his leaving followed what is natural. When one is at ease with the times and follows what is natural, grief and joy cannot enter the heart. The ancients called this “the Emperor’s release from suspension”: the Emperor regards life as being suspended and death as release. They also said: “To be bound is to be suspended; to be unbound is to be released.” Between suspension and release, the nature and conditions of life can be preserved. This is the essential point of nourishing life.
It is like pointing to fire in a pile of wood: the wood is consumed, but the fire passes from one piece of wood to the next, and does not seem to end.
(The Inner Canon says: Fire passes through wood as spirit passes through the body; fire changes its wood as spirit changes its body. The former piece of wood is not the latter, and so one can understand the subtlety of “the finger’s exhaustion”; the former body is not the latter, and so one can grasp the transformations of feelings and allotted lifespans.)
A Plain-Language Interpretation
Form, Spirit, and Life and Death
Some people are so deeply deceived by appearances that when they see the physical body decay over the course of a lifetime, they assume that the spirit and emotions perish along with it. It is like seeing a fire burn through one piece of wood and concluding that everything has come to an end. Can this really be the right way to understand things?
This is a remarkably subtle point. Earlier, the text said that life should be nurtured; here, it says that life and death are one. Is it deliberately contradicting itself? In fact, only those who truly understand that life and death are one can be skilled at nurturing life.
Fu Gui’s Commentary: The Chapter’s Aim and Laying the Foundation
This chapter is titled “Nurturing Life,” and throughout it uses allegories to speak about the art of nurturing life. Laying the foundation begins with clearing the mind. That is why the chapter opens by warning people not to use their limited lives to chase boundless delusions, lest they bring danger upon themselves.
“Clothed in coarse hemp, carrying jade, yet unknown to others”—do not covet empty fame. “Destroying the Three Corpses without incurring guilt”—keep clear of punishment and calamity.
The Governing Vessel is the starting point for seated meditation practice: it rises from the back of the coccyx and passes through the Three Passes, reaches the Mudball Palace, where it meets the Conception Vessel, then descends into the Yellow Court. Following the Governing Vessel as the guiding path is a basic route of internal cultivation.
Cook Ding Butchers an Ox: An Allegory of Yang Spirit Overcoming Yin
“Kitchen” also refers to Ding Fire (the fire of internal cultivation). The scripture does not speak of butchering a dragon or a horse—both are Yang creatures—but speaks of an ox. In the symbolism of numbers and images, Kun represents the ox; references to an “ox” usually point to the Yin within the body.
One must use one’s own Yang spirit to contend with the multitude of Yin spirits, striking with the Wisdom Sword so that every blow finds its mark:
- At first, all that one sees is Yin throughout the body.
- After three years, the multitude of Yin has been stripped away.
- One no longer sees with the eyes, but moves by spirit. The body’s major passes and openings all yield to the blade, and no great demon can withstand one’s strength.
What use is it for those with lesser, heterodox cleverness to forge a sword that lacks power? Even if they sharpen it every month, what good will that do?
“Ten” is the number of Earth; “nine” is the number of Heaven. The minister’s sword was forged by refining the essence of Heaven and Earth and the marrow of Yin and Yang. It has already vanquished thousands of Yin demons. The more it is honed, the keener it grows; it slays demons across ten thousand miles like a flash of lightning. How could anything be too thick for it to pierce, or any gap obstruct its way?
The Clan, Caution, and Sharpening the Blade Before Putting It Away
“Clan” means the people at large. Whenever one reaches this point, seeing that people do not know the master of nurturing life, one recognizes how difficult it is to deal with them and that the Dao cannot be used to reason with them.
The saying “I use what is limited to pursue what is limitless” is a warning to people. At every turn, one may wish to use the Wisdom Sword to liberate one’s clan members, but they refuse to be liberated. The sword is then left useless on the ground. One still looks around, hesitating and hoping for a response from others. In the end, one has no choice but to sharpen the blade and put it away.
Note: The Three Passes, Mudball Palace, Yellow Court, coccyx, Governing Vessel, Conception Vessel, Three Corpses, and Ding Fire are terms from Daoist internal alchemy and the channels of the body. The Wisdom Sword and stripping away Yin are images of cultivation, not references to worldly violence.
This passage comes from the Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence. Using stories and metaphors from the Zhuangzi, it discusses principles of nourishing life, nature and life, and form and spirit. The general meaning is explained below.
“Nourishing Life” and “Awakening to the Dao”
King Hui moves from “skill” to the Dao, a transition that is actually easy to understand. It is like the Four Sprouts in a person—such as the compassion described by Mencius—or like a person’s four limbs. To lose a limb is like being unable to walk properly because one leg is missing. Ruining the Four Sprouts is likewise like losing the ability to walk.
A pheasant in the marsh can eat and drink freely. Once shut in a cage, it is like a person trapped in the cage of fame and profit, exhausted in mind and spirit. Such a person is less carefree than a “free person.” Even though the spirit occupies the central place and acts as “king,” it is usually burdened with labor. Better to let the limbs and the whole body be at ease in their own way.
The “Heaven and Earth” chapter says that one may be the father of the people, but cannot be the father of the father of the people. Lao Dan is the father of the father of the people. Here, “Lao Dan has died” serves as a metaphor for people losing the original ancestral Qi they were endowed with from before birth.
“The son is the son’s Qi in me; the mother is the mother’s Qi there.” The mourners do not realize that they should use the “son’s Qi” within themselves to attune to and reconnect with the primordial “mother’s Qi” elsewhere. It is as if to say: some things must be said, and some grief must be expressed.
At birth, a person comes under the sway of Heaven’s Yin-Yang; this is called “Heaven’s punishment.” If one forgets the root of the nature and life one has received, how could one hope to escape this “punishment”? Only those who can forget life and death can transcend life and death; and only those who have transcended them can truly be free of sorrow and joy. Those who live in the world without knowing how to break out of Yin-Yang’s enclosure are mostly “stiff and stubborn” people, rigid and fixed in their ways. Their lives hang in the hands of the Celestial Emperor: a lift of the tether brings them to life; a release lets them die. Sorrow and joy cannot enter the hearts of such people, and the transformations of creation cannot constrain them. The Celestial Emperor, too, will untie their tether, and their lifespan will be regarded as equal to the Dao of Heaven.
Fire and Kindling, Form and Spirit
Fire is Qi. Clinging to kindling, it burns as though it will never be exhausted, but one cannot say that “this fire” is “that fire.” A human being, too, is a single Qi, and Qi must lodge in a form; this is true of ordinary people. What people pass down to their children and grandchildren is chiefly Qi, not a form that lasts forever. Form may be passed on in the likeness of form, but one cannot say that a grandfather’s spirit is the same as his descendants’ spirit. Form is like kindling and has an end; spirit is like fire and can be transmitted. Thus, immortals transmit spirit, not form.
Once this is understood, kindling is form and fire is spirit. To nourish form is to preserve the kindling in “nourishing life”; to nourish spirit is to nourish the “master of nourishing life,” preserving the fire. The long endurance of immortals and Buddhas depends on the true fire of Heaven and Earth, like the sun and moon that remain suspended in the sky.
The phrase about “juggling a ball”
In the passage about juggling a ball, it says that the “ding” in the Zhuangzi refers to sunlight, while the “knife” refers to the moon at the beginning of the lunar month, newly lit by sunlight. This interprets the Zhuangzi’s wording through the metaphors of the sun, moon, and light. To determine exactly which original sentence these terms correspond to, one would need to consult and punctuate the source text.
The original is written in the style of a commentary and subcommentary. It combines references to chapters of the Zhuangzi, Mencius’s Four Sprouts, form and spirit, primordial and acquired Qi, the Celestial Emperor, Heaven’s punishment, and concepts drawn from both Daoism and Neo-Confucianism. This plain-language explanation follows the general meaning, retains technical terms, and does not translate every quotation word for word.
The Commentary and Subcommentary to the True Classic of Southern Florescence · Inner Chapter 4, “In the Human World”
(Commentary: The Crescent-Moon Blade and the Twelve Monthly Hexagrams)
The image of the crescent-moon blade is this: the Ox corresponds to the Hai position; in the tenth month, the Kun hexagram corresponds to the Ox. In the eleventh month, one Yang line is born, forming the Fu hexagram: the Ox receives one cut. In the twelfth month, two Yang lines form the Lin hexagram: two cuts. In the first month, three Yang lines form the Tai hexagram: three cuts. In the second month, four Yang lines form the Dazhuang hexagram: four cuts. In the third month, five Yang lines form the Guai hexagram: five cuts. In the fourth month, six Yang lines form the Qian hexagram: six cuts. Each blade is shaped like the waxing moon. In the fifth month, one Yin line is born, forming the Gou hexagram: seven cuts. In the sixth month, two Yin lines form the Dun hexagram: eight cuts. In the seventh month, three Yin lines form the Pi hexagram: nine cuts. In the eighth month, four Yin lines form the Guan hexagram: ten cuts. In the ninth month, five Yin lines form the Bo hexagram: eleven cuts. In the tenth month, six Yin lines bring the Kun hexagram back again: twelve cuts. This is the meaning of the butcher Niu Yuan’s saying, “In one morning, I took apart twelve oxen”: he has dissected them with complete mastery, leaving nothing further to take apart.
Why, then, speak of “nineteen years”? Ten is the Earth’s number, and nine the Heaven’s. From the Fu hexagram at Zi through to Qian, all belong to “nine”; from the Gou hexagram at Wu through to Kun and Hai, all belong to “ten.” Ten and nine together complete one cycle; hence the phrase “nineteen.” In Haiyang there was a man skilled at playing with spheres, Master Cheng Yiming, who was well versed in the images of the Changes. I asked him about the Changes. He said, “To study the Changes, one must contemplate the images. Grasp the images and you grasp the meaning; grasp the meaning and you can forget the words.” I assented and took my leave.
(The Chapter’s Main Idea)
People take pleasure in the world without realizing that they are in a sea of suffering. Unless they turn back, they will never reach the shore. The Southern Florescence is fundamentally a book about transcending the world. This chapter is called “In the Human World” because it asks people first to see through the affairs of human life, and only then to leave the human world behind. A poem of the immortals says, “When the game is played out, worldly affairs grow clear; when the seven strings are plucked through, the world is seen as empty.” That is the meaning here.
Main Text
Yan Hui went to see Confucius and asked permission to travel. Confucius asked, “Where are you going?” He replied, “I am going to the state of Wei.” Confucius asked, “What will you do there?” Yan Hui replied, “I have heard that the ruler of Wei—referring to Chu…”
Yan Hui said, “Duke Ling of Wei is in his prime, but acts arbitrarily and relies only on himself. He recklessly burdens the state without seeing his own faults, and recklessly burdens the people, until the dead pile up as if corpses were being used to measure the land. The marshes have dried up, leaving a wasteland strewn with withered grass. The people have nowhere to flee and no way forward. I once heard you say that one should leave a peaceful state and go to a state in turmoil; when a physician’s doorway is crowded with patients, that is precisely the time to go and treat them. I would like to use what I have heard to think out a course of action. Perhaps I could help Wei improve a little?”
Confucius said, “You! Your words are far too bold. You may go there only to be punished and killed. The Dao cannot bear to be mixed with too much. When mixed, it becomes abundant; when abundant, it becomes chaotic; when chaotic, it brings distress; and in distress, one cannot save oneself. (Yan Hui wished to humble himself and uphold the Way, but his teacher would not allow it, disliking the confusion caused by excess, which in the end would save no one.) The perfected people of antiquity first established themselves within, and only then went out to influence others. You must first have something to rely on before you can deal with external things. If your own heart is not yet settled, how can you go before a tyrant, loudly expose his actions, and try to save people? Besides, do you know what wears De away, or where wisdom comes from? De is washed away by the pursuit of fame; wisdom emerges from contention. Fame means people jostling against one another; wisdom is a tool for fighting. Both are dangerous weapons, not means of preserving yourself and fulfilling your course in the world. Your De is deep and your trustworthiness sincere; you appear honest, yet you do not understand human affairs. Though your reputation is high and you do not contend for fame or profit, you still do not understand the human heart. Yet you would force words about benevolence and righteousness, about the measuring lines and standards of law and order, upon a tyrant. That will make people resent you for flaunting your own virtue. This is called ‘harming others.’ Those who harm others will in turn be harmed by them; you may well be harmed. Besides, if you simply delight in the virtuous and detest the unvirtuous…”
A Plain-Language Interpretation of the Annotations and Commentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence
Why make a point of seeming different and promoting yourself? If the ruler of Wey truly admired the worthy and despised the unworthy, worthy people in Wey would already be available for him to employ. Why, then, would he need you to seek distinction and sell yourself?
If you go without a summons, the ruler will seize on your rashness and compete with you in cleverness, trying to outdo you.
Your eyes will grow clouded, your expression will become constrained as you try to placate him, your mouth will go on making excuses, your bearing will turn obsequious, and your heart will fall into line with his wishes.
This is like trying to put out fire with fire, or water with water: it only makes things worse. The more he flaunts his cleverness, the more you comply and fall behind, and the more fiercely he asserts himself. It is called “increasing the excess”: compliance sets the process in motion, but there is no end to it.
If your relationship is shallow but your words are weighty, you will surely die at the hands of a violent ruler. That is what is meant by “going into danger and facing punishment.”
In the past, Jie killed Guan Longfeng, and Zhou killed Prince Bi Gan. Both men cultivated themselves, bent low to care for the people, and, in their roles as ministers, opposed their rulers. “Cultivating themselves while bending down to care for others”: to bend down and care for others means to show concern and offer comfort. They loved the people rather than the ruler, and so went against the nature of a tyrant.
Their rulers therefore used their cultivation as a pretext to suppress and destroy them. Tyrants do not want their subjects to gain a reputation greater than their own.
In the past, Yao attacked Congzhi and Xuao, and Yu attacked Youhu. Their lands became ruins, their people became vengeful spirits, and they themselves met punishment and death. They kept waging war because they sought the reality behind “opposing the ruler.” Yao and Yu were sage kings, yet they too attacked other states in pursuit of reputation and tangible results.
All of them sought reputation and tangible results. Have you never heard that reputation and tangible results are beyond even the sages’ power to overcome? How much less could someone like you contend with them?
This passage comes from Yan He, a disciple of Confucius who refused to serve as tutor to the heir of Wey, and his discussion of the dangers of trying to “stop violence.” Its central warning is that one should not presume that a tyrant will be swayed by a desire for reputation or by cultivated virtue; such a stance may instead invite harm. Even Yao and Yu are criticized for waging war in pursuit of reputation and tangible results, in keeping with Zhuangzi’s emphasis on Wuwei (non-action) and keeping distant from fame.
This passage comes from the discussion in the “In the Human World” chapter of the Zhuangzi about Yan He (the text here reads “Yan Hui,” and the commentaries follow that reading) going to the state of Wei. The commentaries explain the meaning sentence by sentence. In modern language:
Confucius said, “Do you mean to go and influence him with nothing to rely on? Even if you are going, you must have some basis for it. Come, tell me what you have in mind.”
Yan Hui said, “If I am dignified in appearance, calm and empty within, single-minded in my resolve, and pure in my De (Virtue/Power), would that work?” Confucius said, “No, that will not do. The ruler of Wei has only just gained power, and already he is full of himself. His manner is arrogant and overbearing; his moods shift without warning, and his respect and neglect have no consistency. Ordinary people dare not oppose him, simply because they fear him and comply. If you follow the delusions others foster in him, just to please him and let his heart indulge itself, you will not even achieve what is called ‘the De that grows day by day,’ much less great De. He will remain stubborn and unchanged. Outwardly, he may seem to agree with you, but inwardly he will not be persuaded. (“Criticism” here refers to your manner of solemn restraint, inner stillness, and strenuous single-mindedness: outwardly it seems to accord with him, but inwardly it cannot persuade him.) How could that work?”
Yan Hui said, “What if I am upright within but accommodating outwardly, and cultivate my De by modeling myself on those above me?” Confucius said, “Being upright within makes you akin to Heaven, sharing De with Heaven. Those who are akin to Heaven know that the Son of Heaven and ‘I’ are both sons born of Heaven, with no difference between us. Why keep speaking of ‘I’ as though seeking something for yourself? If others say something is good, do you then say it is good, and if they say it is bad, do you say it is bad? If so, people would call you a ‘young child’—pure and without loss of your natural, innate simplicity. That is what it means to be akin to Heaven. Being accommodating outwardly makes you akin to other people, sharing their place. Holding a tablet of office, kneeling upright, and bending the body are the rites of a minister. Everyone else does this; how could I not? Doing what others do means they will not find fault with you or turn against you. That is what it means to be akin to other people. Cultivating your De by modeling yourself on those above you makes you akin to the people of antiquity, a follower of the sages. Though what you say may sound like criticism, in truth it accords with the meaning of the ancients. The principles handed down from antiquity are not inventions of my own. If so, even speaking plainly is no fault. That is what it means to be akin to the people of antiquity.”
Can one take the ancients as one’s teachers?
Confucius said, “No. There are too many methods and rules; in the end, your mind will still be unsettled. Even if you manage to keep them, you may avoid serious error, but at most their teachings will ‘enter your ears.’ They will not truly transform others. You are still ‘taking your own mind as your teacher,’ rather than following Heaven and letting things be as they are.”
Yan Hui said, “I can see no way to go further. May I ask how I should cultivate myself?”
Confucius said, “First fast, and then I will tell you. If you act with fixed ideas in your mind, how can it be easy? The path that seems ‘easy’ does not accord with a state of natural wholeness.”
Yan Hui said, “My family is poor. For several months I have gone without wine or meat. Does that count as fasting?”
Confucius said, “That is ritual fasting, not fasting of the mind.”
Yan Hui asked, “What is fasting of the mind?”
Confucius said, “Make your mind single and undivided; let no other thoughts intrude. Do not ‘listen’ with your ears; listen with your mind. And do not stop at listening with your mind; listen with Qi (vital energy). The ears can only hear sounds, while the mind can only accord with the Way of Heaven. The word accord here also appears in Daoist phrases such as ‘Heaven’s tally’ and ‘fire tally,’ meaning a tacit correspondence with nature, not something artificially contrived. Qi is characterized by emptiness and the capacity to receive things. The Dao gathers in this ‘emptiness’—and this is fasting of the mind.”
In the commentaries, Chen Xiangdao sums it up this way: “The ancients were cautious about deliberate thought and action. To make one’s Virtue spiritually luminous, one must first fast the mind. That is why Confucius taught Yan Hui this way.” Wenzi also says: “The superior person listens with spirit; the person of middling ability listens with the mind; the inferior person listens with the ears.” If one listens only with the ears, one is confined to what one hears. If the mind rests in accord, it corresponds with Heaven’s tally. Listening with Qi, by contrast, allows a vast and unhindered flow. One uses the body without becoming attached to bodily form, and responds to things without binding them to the mind. Thus, “making one’s intention single” is for the sake of joining with Qi; joining with Qi is for the sake of attaining emptiness; attaining emptiness is for the sake of gathering the Dao. This is the meaning of fasting of the mind.
Yan Hui said, “Before I heard your words, I felt there was a ‘Yan Hui.’ After hearing them, it is as though there is no fixed ‘Yan Hui’ anymore. Is this what you mean by ‘emptiness’?”
Confucius said, “You have arrived! Let me tell you: in this state, you can move freely in the realm of names, no longer bound by reputation or fixed forms.”
Annotations and Commentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence
A cage means the prison of worldly fame and profit. Not being moved by empty fame means that the heart is not led astray by hollow reputation. When there is something worth saying, speak—like the notes of the musical scale harmonizing without deliberate effort; this is why it is called “sounding.” When there is nothing worth saying, remain silent. Do not casually open a gate or administer a dose of medicine—that is, do not use methods indiscriminately. Keep to a single “dwelling,” responding to affairs only when there is no choice, and you will approach the true state. A great bell is silent by nature; it sounds only when struck. Take “doing nothing” as your true dwelling, and “acting” as the trace you leave in response to the world.
Leaving no trace is easy; moving without setting foot on the ground is hard: It is relatively easy to stop the senses and discriminating mind from seeing and hearing, and to sever outward traces. But it is hard for the spirit and intention to move without treading on solid ground—to look inward for clarity and listen back inward for acuity.
It is easy to deceive people with appearances when acting on their behalf; it is hard to feign acting on Heaven’s behalf: Those who act for people often rely on pretense, with great treachery resembling loyalty and great deceit resembling trustworthiness. Those who act for Heaven, as in “the golden crow beneath the sea, the sun in the sky, the child in the eyes, the person before you,” cannot be imitated at will.
People have heard that one needs wings to fly, but not of flying without wings. Conventional scholars know only that something called “wingless” can fly for a long time; they do not understand the principle in the alchemical Way that “when the knife and ladle enter the mouth, feathers and wings arise of themselves.” People have heard of knowing through intelligence, but not of taking not-knowing as knowledge. They know only that clarifying oneself and becoming sincere is called instruction; they do not understand that the Great Dao cannot be known through “knowledge,” nor grasped through “recognition.”
“Look at that person who is missing something: the empty room gives birth to light; good fortune comes to rest.” When people have knowledge, they often use it to fill their hearts, leaving them not “incomplete.” If they are not incomplete, they cannot be “empty.” Only the knowledge of not-knowing is like a clear mirror or still water: with nothing in the heart, all things that arrive are reflected without omission. It is also like an empty room with an opening: emptiness gives rise to brightness, and light that enters is sure to illuminate it. “The empty room gives birth to light” is what alchemical texts call “when emptiness reaches its limit, light is born.” “Good fortune comes to rest” refers to states such as the Five Qi converging at the origin and the Three Flowers gathering at the crown.
If one cannot rest in this state, it is called sitting in flight: the body sits while the mind races. If one simply follows the ears and eyes, with the mind and intellect pulled along by external things, even ghosts and spirits will leave their dwelling—how much more so ordinary people? This “resting” differs from the Confucian idea of “knowing where to stop.” It means the original Jing, original Qi, and original Shen becoming one; in alchemical terms, this is the spirit chamber.
A Discussion of “Resting in the Place That Is Right” and the Perfect Person
To be securely settled in the place where one belongs does not mean sitting in meditation all day while the body remains seated and the original spirit—the person’s true spiritual nature—leaves the body. That is called “sitting still while the mind races”: a person sits, but the mind wanders everywhere.
Only the Perfect Person, one whose cultivation has reached the highest level, has ears and eyes yet is not moved in thought by what they hear and see. Rather than reaching outward, they turn inward, joining and transforming what is within. In this way, the ears and eyes are transformed into spirit and essence in motion, while the mind’s awareness becomes empty clarity. Such a person can command ghosts and spirits in hidden depths; how, then, could they fail to gather and settle the feelings of the many in the bright realm?
This is the Way by which the myriad things are nurtured and transformed. It is the pivot grasped by Yu and Shun, and the practice followed throughout their lives by Fuxi and Ji Qu. How much more does it apply to us ordinary people, whose minds are scattered?
Lord Ye’s Son Gao Is About to Travel as an Envoy to Qi
Lord Ye’s son Gao—Shen Zhuliang, courtesy name Z Gao, magistrate of Ye County in the state of Chu—was about to travel as an envoy to Qi. He sought advice from Zhongni, Confucius, and said: “My ruler has sent me on a mission, and the responsibility is great. Qi may treat its envoys with outward respect, yet feel little urgency inwardly.” (The ceremony may be grand, while the feelings behind it are distant and cool.) “Even ordinary people are hard to move; how much more so the rulers of other states! I am very anxious.” (The word ‘li’ means to tremble with fear and become flustered.)
“Master, you once told me: ‘In matters great or small, few succeed without harmony and goodwill.’” (In other words, matters are rarely accomplished without cordial feeling.) “‘If a matter fails, there will surely be troubles arising in human affairs, such as punishment. If it succeeds, there will surely be troubles arising from Yin and Yang, such as illness brought on by mental strain and exhaustion. Whether the matter succeeds or fails, only a person of De can avoid calamity afterward.’” (Here he is repeating Confucius’s words.)
“I eat only plain food and do not seek delicacies; nor do I want people in my household to live in idle comfort.” (The affairs of the household are simple; I do not seek coolness and ease.) “Now I received my orders this morning, and by evening I already want to drink iced water. My chest feels both hot and cold.” (As I take on this mission, joy and fear contend within me; my five organs feel as though ice and burning charcoal were placed together.) “I have not yet seen how things stand in Qi, but the troubles of Yin and Yang have already come upon me. If the mission fails, there will surely be troubles in human affairs. With both troubles arriving together, a minister like me cannot bear it. Master, what advice can you give me?”
I went to pay my respects to Zhongni. He said, “There are two great principles in the world. One is destiny: the place and duty a person receives from Heaven. The other is duty: the responsibility a person ought to fulfill. A child’s love and respect for their parents are prescribed by destiny and cannot be cast off from the heart. A minister’s service to the ruler is required by duty; wherever one may be, one cannot deny the bond with the ruler or escape one’s responsibility between Heaven and Earth. These are called the great principles.
“Therefore, to serve one’s parents with wholehearted composure in both good times and bad is the utmost expression of filial piety. To serve one’s ruler with composed dedication through both peaceful and dangerous circumstances is the highest expression of loyalty. One who is skilled at settling the heart remains unchanged within, whether grief or joy comes before them, just as when serving a ruler or parents. To know that something cannot be helped and yet accept it calmly, as one accepts the arrangements of destiny, is the highest state of virtue.
“Ministers and children each have responsibilities they cannot avoid. If you act according to the circumstances as they are, even forgetting yourself, why would you be concerned with clinging to life or fearing death? Master, this is what you should do.” This means that filial piety and loyalty belong to engagement in the world; when one ceases to cling to the desire to live or the fear of death, one can turn toward a spiritual path beyond worldly concerns.
“I ask you to tell me more of what you have heard. Within one’s own country, people must treat one another with deference and keep their word. In dealings with neighboring states, one must express loyalty and trustworthiness through one’s words. Words always have to be relayed by someone. Carrying back and forth the words of two rulers, each speaking in anger or delight, is the hardest task in the world. When both sides are pleased, the words passed along are often exaggerated in praise; when both are angry, they are often exaggerated in blame. Any embellishment can easily make words untrue. Once they become untrue, the listener no longer trusts them, and the messenger may consequently incur danger: both sides may hold him responsible. So an old saying goes: ‘Relay ordinary, truthful words, and do not pass on inflated ones.’ This is more or less a way to keep oneself safe.” This explains that an envoy should understand human nature and relay messages with care, so that the two states do not fall into conflict over words spoken in anger or delight, but may remain at peace.
“Moreover, those who fight with skill and strength begin with some measure of restraint in their manner.”
(Continuing from the previous passage.) When benevolence and righteousness go astray, they often end in cunning and calculation. The examples that follow show why one must be careful at the outset: a good beginning does not guarantee a good ending, so what can be expected when things begin badly?
When skill becomes too artful—when it is carried to excess—and drinking begins according to ritual, all may at first proceed in good order, yet often end in great disorder, with shouting and uproar. When excitement runs too high, it gives rise to all kinds of ingenious amusements; carried too far, these stir the emotions, and people take pleasure in them. So it is with everything: what begins with a promise of trustworthiness often ends in petty deceit; what begins carelessly and simply is bound, by the end, to collapse beyond repair.
Words are waves raised by the wind. When wind meets water, it raises waves; when people begin to argue, turmoil follows. Thus words can stir up trouble. In action, substance is often lost along with reputation. Someone who takes no action neither gains nor loses; once they act, few gain a good name, while many lose theirs. Thus action often leaves substance intact but costs one’s reputation. Waves of words can easily unsettle people’s hearts, while the loss of reputation brings real danger close. Reputation is the guest of substance, and substance its host. Once reputation and substance part ways, reputation may be lost while substance remains. But if substance, too, is lost, not only will the guest fail to arrive; the host will be stripped bare.
Anger, then, often arises without cause, while artful words show only one side of things. When a beast faces death, it no longer chooses how to cry out: its breath surges forth, and a harsh, fierce impulse arises with it. In the same way, words devoid of feeling are like those of a wild beast driven into a corner: its mild cries turn violent, its breath rushes out, and a savage impulse rises in response. Excessive harshness and scrutiny will surely be met by an unworthy state of mind. Be generous and you will win the people; be trustworthy and others will rely on you. To be severe is to be harsh and exploitative; to scrutinize is to examine things closely. Taken to extremes, harshness and scrutiny become excessive, and when you treat others with an unworthy state of mind, they will respond in kind. Such is human nature, and such is the way of things. Anyone navigating the world should reflect deeply on this.
Yet people fail to realize what they are doing. If they truly do not realize it, who can know what kind of end they will meet? Even here, they give no thought to reflection and still do not understand why things happen as they do.
When calamity approaches, one often cannot foresee its ultimate extent. As the ancient text Fayan states: "When conveying a ruler's command, do not alter it arbitrarily (qianling), nor force matters to completion (quancheng)." If one harbors the notion of excessive interference—either by modifying orders willfully or coercing outcomes—this very act may plunge affairs into peril.
Genuine friendship requires prolonged cultivation (meicheng zaijiu), whereas toxic relationships, once formed, become irreparable (echeng buji gai). Words stir up trouble as easily as ripples on water, and the damage from actions proves equally hard to mend. How can one not exercise caution in speech and conduct?
The truly wise person rides the changes of external phenomena while maintaining inner freedom (chengwu yi youxin), nurturing equanimity when compelled by circumstance (yang zhong). Why strain to reciprocate a ruler's mandate through deliberate action? The greatest challenge lies in following nature's course—as exemplified when Yan He, about to become tutor to Prince Kuai Kui of Wei, sought advice from Qu Boyu: "This man's innate virtue tends toward cruelty (qi de tiansha). Indulging his whims endangers the state, yet restraining him with rules jeopardizes myself. His cunning detects others' faults while remaining blind to his own. How should one proceed?"
Qu Boyu praised this as an excellent question, admonishing him first to rectify himself (zheng rushen). Outwardly, appear approachable and accommodating (xing jiu); inwardly, preserve serenity (xin he). But take heed: accommodation must avoid sycophancy (jiu bu yu ru), and serenity should never seem contrived (he bu yu chu). Be like warm jade—naturally patterned (wen er li), inwardly discerning yet outwardly pliant (nei wenming er wai roushun).
This may lead to overthrow, ruin, collapse, and downfall (from ancient times, flattering ministers have often resembled one another in their conduct and fallen into these four outcomes. To face danger without offering support means perishing together with the other party). When harmony becomes a way of putting oneself forward, it may bring a reputation, an empty reputation, or monstrous calamity (when compliance goes so far that one seeks the spotlight, it earns a reputation for enduring disgrace and humiliation and for helping the other party. The other party will resent anyone who outshines them and recklessly stir up monstrous calamities).
If the other party is like an infant, you too should be like an infant (to be like an infant alongside them, until you become free of fault: though you may go along with them without any fixed method, you need not endanger the state; if you go along with them by a set method, you need not endanger yourself. An infant has no knowledge—this is also a phrase for yielding and accommodating them for the time being). If the other party has no boundaries, you too should have no boundaries (the image of a garden with no boundaries describes a person without standards). If the other party has no limits, you too should have no limits (to have no limits means to wander without restraint and forget the way back). Through understanding, one can enter a state free of fault (the other party may behave wildly and without restraint; I can outwardly go along with them, while inwardly seizing the moment when they come to their senses to offer a touch of guidance, so that they quickly become free of fault).
Do you not know the mantis? (Three examples are given in succession to show that one should assess an opponent before advancing, avoid provoking their anger, and refrain from boasting of one’s own talents; then the position of someone who lacks the Dao may be handed down.) It raises its forelegs in anger to block a wheel rut, unaware that it is no match for the task. This is what it means to rely on the excellence of one’s own talents. Be warned, be cautious: to pile up boasts of one’s excellence and use them to challenge another is to come close (to endangering oneself. In the past, King Zhuang of Chu saw an insect in front of his carriage raising its forelegs in anger to block it. He asked what kind of insect it was. His attendants replied, “It is a mantis. This insect knows how to advance but not how to retreat.” King Zhuang said, “Then I should make way for it, to encourage the brave.” Later, when the brave men of the realm heard of this, they gathered at his court.)
Do you not know how those who raise tigers care for them? They dare not give them live prey, lest the tigers’ anger be stirred by killing it. Nor do they dare give them whole prey, lest the tigers’ anger be stirred by tearing it apart. They time the tigers’ feeding to their hunger and fullness, and so understand their anger. Tigers and humans belong to different kinds, yet tigers are affectionate toward those who care for them because they comply with their nature. Thus, those who are killed by tigers have acted against their nature. As for one who loves horses...
《Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence》
Arrows are carried in a bamboo basket (here, “arrows” also refers to horse dung), while urine is collected in a vessel made of clay and ash. Just then, horseflies and mosquitoes come to bite a horse. The driver reaches out to swat them, but catches the horse at the wrong moment. It suddenly breaks free of the bit and bridle, smashing the ornaments on its chest. A tiger is naturally fierce; treat it gently, and it can be tamed. A horse is naturally easy to tame; startle it, and it becomes fierce. When good intentions go to extremes, care can turn to harm. Can one afford to be careless? In dealing with others, one must be cautious whether circumstances are favorable or adverse.
The carpenter Shi arrived in the state of Qi and came to Quyuan Mountain. There he saw an oak tree, a tree associated with the local earth deity. Its crown was large enough to shade several thousand oxen. When measured, its trunk was a hundred spans around—a span being a trunk one foot in diameter, or roughly ten zhang in circumference—and its height rose ten ren above the mountainside, with each ren equal to four feet. Only then did its branches begin to spread. More than a dozen of its side branches were large enough to be made into boat timbers. Onlookers crowded around as if at a market. The master carpenter did not so much as glance at it, but kept walking. After he had looked his fill, his apprentice hurried after him and said, “Since I took up an ax and began following you, I have never seen such fine timber. Yet you wouldn’t even look at it before walking on. Why?” The master carpenter replied, “Enough. There’s no need to speak of it. This is useless wood. Make it into a boat, and it will sink; make it into a coffin, and it will rot quickly. Make utensils from it, and they will soon break. Use it for a door, and its sap will seep out darkly; use it as a pillar, and worms will infest it. It is timber of no use, suitable for nothing. That is why it has lived so long.”
After the carpenter Shi returned home, the oak tree associated with the earth deity appeared to him in a dream and said, “What do you intend to compare me with? Are you comparing me to ornamental trees? Trees with fine grain and beautiful patterns are often cut down. Hawthorns, pear trees, oranges, pomelos, and the like have their ripe fruit stripped from them, bringing them humiliation; their large branches are broken and their smaller ones torn away. Because of their useful qualities, they suffer throughout their lives. So they cannot reach the end of their natural lifespan, but are cut down before their time and harmed by the world. All things are like this. For a long time I have sought to be of no use, and I nearly died in the process (the apprentice’s eager admiration nearly brought me death). Now I have achieved it. For me, this is the greatest use: it allows me to live a long life.”
Could it be useful and still grow so tall? (If it were cut down, it would be disgraced.) Besides, you and I (the tree means the carpenter Shi) are both things. Why should one thing judge another by the standards of things? (By what right do you use the standards of one thing to understand another?) You people, scattered and almost dead, how could you understand the way of a useless tree?
When the carpenter Shi woke, he recounted the dream. (“Diagnose” here means “interpret,” as in interpreting a dream.) His disciple said, “Hurry and cut down that useless tree. It has even been made the spirit of the village altar—why?” Shi said, “Be quiet. It merely chose to dwell directly beside the village altar. How can you insult it just because someone does not understand it? Even if it were not the village spirit, would anyone cut it down? Besides, what it preserves is unlike what others preserve. To praise it by the reasoning of ‘useful’ and ‘useless’ is surely far off the mark.”
Nanbo Ziqi (a personal name) was traveling in Shangqiu (a place name) when he saw a great tree of extraordinary shape, large enough to shade a thousand chariots. Ziqi said, “What kind of tree is this? It must be made of unusual timber.” Looking up at its branches, he saw they were twisted and gnarled, unfit for rafters. Looking down at its trunk, he saw it was split and contorted like a wheel hub, unfit for a coffin. Lick its leaves and your mouth would become raw and injured; smell its odor and you would grow as delirious as someone drunk, for three days without relief. Ziqi said, “This truly is a tree of no use—and yet it has grown so huge. Ah, even the spiritlike person keeps to being of no use. From this we can see that the spiritlike person, too, is useless: thus the spirit gathers and does not scatter, the person remains unharmed, and Heaven alone endures.” In the land of Jing in Song (place names), people plant catalpa, cypress, and mulberry. Trees with trunks two hands around, or one hand thick, are cut down for perches where monkeys can roost. (“Perch” here means a pole for monkeys.) Trees three or four girths around are cut down for the main beams of large houses. Those seven or eight girths around are cut down by noble and wealthy households to make the full outer panels of coffins. (“Outer panels” refers to the wood along the sides of a coffin.) So they do not live out their natural years, but die halfway through, felled by axes and hatchets. This is the calamity that befalls timber that is “useful.”
Suffering calls for the methods in the Ancient Prayers to resolve it. A cow with a snow-white forehead, a pig with its snout turned upward, and a person with hemorrhoids must not be offered in sacrifice to the river. This resembles the story of Ximen Bao, who opposed sacrificing people to the river; another interpretation says it refers to sending people to serve as ritual specialists. Shamans and ritual officiants understand these matters and regard all three as inauspicious. Yet, in the eyes of the spiritual person, it is precisely this kind of “uselessness” that counts as great good fortune.
A man named Zhili Shu had lips that touched his navel, shoulders higher than his head, and a topknot pointing skyward. In ancient times, people wore their topknots at the back of the neck; because his back was hunched and his head bent down, his topknot pointed upward. The openings of his five organs all faced upward, and his thighs served as his ribs. “Thighs” and “ribs” here describe his twisted body and humped back. He earned enough to live by sewing and washing clothes for others, and supported a family of ten by winnowing and sifting their grain. When the state recruited soldiers, Zhili Shu waved his arms and mingled with the crowd of applicants, but he was never conscripted. When the state undertook major construction projects, his long-standing strange illness exempted him from labor service. When the state distributed grain to the sick, he received three measures of rice and ten bundles of firewood. Though Zhili Shu’s body was so misshapen, he could still sustain himself and live out his allotted years. How much more, then, can one do so by making one’s De misshapen? To make one’s De misshapen is to avoid showing off or boasting, to conceal what is useful within what seems useless, and to let one’s abilities disappear into apparent incapacity. In this way, one escapes the harms of the world and preserves one’s nature and life. The preceding passage used a tree as its example; this one uses a person.
When Confucius went to the state of Chu, the madman Jieyu of Chu wandered in front of his gate and said, “Phoenix, Phoenix, how your De has declined! The future cannot be awaited, and the past cannot be recovered. When the world is ruled by the Dao, sages can accomplish their work; when the world is without the Dao, sages seek only to preserve their lives. At present…”
A Plain-Language Interpretation
The Main Meaning of the Text
In the world as it is today, people seek only to escape punishment by the narrowest margin; they cannot accomplish anything. Good fortune is as light as a feather—preserving one’s life is the true blessing—yet no one knows how to hold on to it securely. Calamity is as heavy as the earth—injury and death are the true disasters—yet no one knows how to avoid it.
Enough, enough! Who has the leisure to transform others through virtue? Dangerous, dangerous! Why behave so timidly, as if you were running on the ground but dared not step beyond a line drawn there? Confusing thornbush, confusing thornbush, do not block my path! I would rather take a detour than hurt my feet. Why soil my integrity and bend my straight course until my feet are injured?
Trees are felled because they are useful; oil burns itself away because it can provide a flame. These images describe forgetting oneself and catering to external things. The cinnamon tree is cut down because its bark can be eaten; the lacquer tree is tapped because it is useful. These images describe showing off one’s strengths in hopes of being put to use. Everyone understands “the usefulness of what is useful,” but no one understands “the usefulness of what is useless.”
Commentary
“The usefulness of what is useful” concerns worldly affairs, which most people understand. “The usefulness of what is useless” concerns transcending the world—escaping fame and profit and preserving one’s original nature. Those who have not transcended the world cannot truly understand it, much less explain it fully. The whole text speaks of emptiness, and its conclusion rests on nonbeing. The two ideas, emptiness and nonbeing, are inescapable throughout the myriad Elixir scriptures, the Daoist texts on cultivation. They lie at the heart of the teachings of Zhuangzi and Laozi. How could secular Confucian scholars know that the Nanhua Jing—the Zhuangzi—is in truth the ancestral source of the Elixir scriptures?
Master Fugui’s Commentary
The Nanhua Jing as a whole is organized around transcending the world. Since ancient times, anyone who truly sought to transcend it first had to see through worldly affairs; only then could they act decisively to leave them behind. That is why this chapter also uses stories about worldly life to convey the purpose of transcending the world. Yan Hui, Confucius, Yan He, Bo Yu, the Madman of Chu, and the others are names and characters Zhuangzi and Laozi adopted for their own purposes, to make people more willing to believe and follow their teaching.
Yan Hui did not take up office to govern a state, but went to Wei to save a ruler who acted on his own and relied only on his own intelligence, and to save the people of Wei. This is an ordinary human impulse, but it does not yet mean he has truly heard the Dao. So Confucius taught him to hold fast to the Dao: do not entangle yourself in miscellaneous affairs; first cultivate yourself, then guide others. Guiding others means using your own Virtue and wisdom to lead them. But if this provokes conflict and rivalry, you will not be able to guide anyone; you will only bring disaster upon yourself. Remember that a ruler who acts unilaterally and trusts only his own intelligence will often conceal his mistakes and refuse to hear advice.
(If later passages include phrases such as “you must understand that a ruler who acts alone…,” the general meaning is this: when dealing with such a ruler, you must understand that you cannot confront him head-on. You must preserve yourself through uselessness, detours, and ways that do not cause you harm. This follows the same principle as the chapter’s concluding idea, “the usefulness of what is useless.”)
This passage comes from a commentary on the Nanhua Zhenjing. It uses Daoist ideas and later Neidan language to discuss how to “use the mind,” how to conduct oneself in the world, and how to serve as an envoy.
The main idea is this: Human nature is originally natural. Teachings about benevolence and righteousness, ritual and law, and rules and measures run counter to people’s unruly, violent nature. Is that not like trying to put out a fire with fire or stop a flood with water, only making things worse? Jie and Zhou used the pretext of “love of reputation” to kill their ministers; Yao and Yu wielded military force in pursuit of fame and achievement, yet still could not truly prevail. What, then, could Yan Hui rely on? Nothing but solemn composure and stillness of mind. Yet these alone could never dispel the ruler of Wei’s flamboyant expression. Diligence and single-mindedness, if relied on alone, could never change the ruler’s self-satisfied ease of mind. Even if one could be a companion to Heaven, to other people, and to the ancients, that would at most mean barely escaping punishment; it would still not be enough to transform others. Perhaps only “fasting of the mind” would do.
As in the case of someone like Yan Hui, the senses of hearing and sight are transformed, and the mind follows suit. The commentator compares this to what Neidan calls “refining Jing into Qi.” Then one “listens with Qi,” and the mind reaches a state of accord with the Dao. This is refining Qi into Shen, and refining Shen until it returns to emptiness. When empty, the six channels open and the four directions are unobstructed; one lets external things come and meets them without barriers. Only emptiness can contain all things, and the Dao gathers in emptiness. Apart from emptiness, there is no other fasting of the mind.
“To leave tracks and still serve others” means remaining bound by traces and being put to use by others, like flying with wings: this involves knowledge and awareness. “To move without walking on the ground” is to serve purely as Heaven’s messenger, like flying without wings: this involves no knowledge or awareness. The human body has a spirit chamber, the empty room described in the Zhuangzi: “Look at that empty room; brightness is born within.” When the mind is full and not empty, it is inauspicious and dark; this is the state of ordinary people. When it is empty, it is auspicious and bright, the state spoken of by immortals and Buddhas. “Auspiciousness rests where stillness abides”: it rests in emptiness, like the Neidan image of white clouds gathering at the crown and sweet dew sprinkling Mount Sumeru. Even ghosts and spirits cannot leave this realm. Why, then, fear that the ruler of Wei cannot be transformed?
Yan Hui had superior innate capacity, so he was taught the way of transcending the world. Lord Ye, by contrast, had a lesser and duller capacity, and ordinarily concerned himself with worldly affairs. Sending him on a mission to Qi would allow him to fulfill his duty and avoid the troubles of human society. But it would be difficult to speak with him at length about transcending Yin-Yang to escape affliction.
The saying “One cannot escape serving one’s parents, and a minister has nowhere to flee from serving the ruler” means that one cannot refuse to serve one’s parents, nor evade serving the ruler. But those who cultivate their own minds regard life and death as equal and forget likes and dislikes. They treat an official mission simply as a duty to perform, without trying to guess at other people’s thoughts. If one insists on guessing, human feelings amount to little more than joy and anger. Report their ordinary sentiments, without adding to their excessive praise. Then the two rulers will have no cause for joy or anger, and the envoy can complete the mission and return without difficulty. Yet envoys nowadays rely either on clever verbal contests or on contests of strength. They are like drinkers who begin sober and end in confusion. When people can see clearly…
The final phrase, “when people can see,” appears incomplete in the quotation. Commentaries commonly continue by discussing how to discern other people’s feelings and maintain emptiness of mind.
The passage’s guiding idea throughout is that teachings of benevolence, righteousness, and social norms can backfire when they oppose people’s nature. Governing a state and transforming others cannot rely on solemnity and diligence alone; they require “fasting of the mind,” a quiet and empty mind. This connects Zhuangzi’s teaching with Neidan ideas of refining Jing into Qi, then refining Qi into Shen and returning to emptiness. Yan Hui could learn the way of transcending the world, while Lord Ye could only fulfill his duties in ordinary life. An envoy should report ordinary sentiments without inflaming joy or anger, and avoid contests of cleverness or strength.
A Plain Language Interpretation
On the Measure of Conduct and Envoys
At the most basic level: be simple when simplicity is called for, and still when stillness is called for. Do not use “Wuwei” (non-action) as an empty slogan or as a pretext. Above all, do not act in a way that seems lofty on the surface but harms others and brings trouble down on them as well.
It is like pursuing a wild animal driven into a desperate corner: do not drive people to their last resort, and do not drain others’ goodwill just to provoke someone who is beyond reform. Even when sent on a diplomatic mission, there are established rules to follow. Carry out the ruler’s command as though holding a jade ruler used for measuring: follow the command itself, without swerving because of gain or loss. Listen only to the words of the command; do not rely on persuasion to get things done. Better to fulfill only the mission of bringing two states into friendship than to return with words that might stir up conflict. This is not only caution in the conduct of an envoy; it also nurtures the integrity within oneself. If you hope to avoid the dangers of human affairs, it is better to hold fast to this principle.
As for “not deliberately seeking something, yet finding it naturally fulfilled”—that belongs to the realm of the Great Director of Fate, the deity who governs lifespan and destiny. It is the hardest part, and cannot be forced by human effort.
Yan He Instructs the Crown Prince of Wei: First Set Yourself Right
Yan He was ordered to teach the crown prince of Wei. He worried only about having no way to protect himself, unaware that beyond “having no fixed method” there is also the matter of “not yet having exhausted every method.” So Confucius taught him to set himself right. As for the subtle art of putting this into practice, he said:
- “In form, nothing is better than what is fitting”: What form is most appropriate? One that can be square or round, adapting to circumstances.
- “In mind, nothing is better than harmony”: What is best within the mind? To have no opposition between self and other, and to be in harmony with people.
- “Approach”: Do not try to force your way into disputes over right and wrong. Be like something ground down that does not wear away, or dyed black that does not turn dark: no matter how polluted the outside world is, it cannot stain you through.
- “Harmonize”: Do not expose all your schemes and intentions. Let the spirit work unseen, while your traces remain as simple and uncarved as before.
Is this really about correcting the world and quelling its vulgar ways? It is simply about living alongside everyone under Heaven in a state free of quarrels over status, disputes over boundaries, and calculations without end. That is enough. What flaw could there be to criticize?
Three Parables, Each Making a Different Point
- The mantis: Those with ability should be valued, not used recklessly.
- Raising a tiger: The feelings of the people should be followed, not forcibly bent.
- Loving a horse: Failure to bear small costs can ruin a larger undertaking.
“Attention settles on one thing, and affection makes one forget the rest.” On the surface, this speaks of loving a fine horse above all else. Its deeper meaning is that people know only the pleasures within the world, and do not know what lies beyond it: no name, no substance, no life or death. Treating all things with emptiness and stillness brings boundless joy. Nurturing clarity through emptiness—“emptiness gives rise to brightness”—makes the spirit unfathomable. Such a person stands beyond Yin-Yang, and even Yin-Yang cannot harm them.
But to preserve the spirit whole, one must begin by keeping the body whole. The oak tree used as a shrine tree and the tree on Shangqiu survived because they were “useless”; because they were not fit for timber, they preserved their lives. Zhili Shu, whose body was deformed, was still able to sustain himself. How much more so for one whose De (Virtue/Power) is hidden and unformed—who conceals his reputation, draws in his radiance, and does not display himself to the world. How much more complete would his spirit be?
The Madman of Chu: Escaping the Gates of Misfortune and Fortune
The text then uses the voice of the Madman of Chu to expose the gates of fortune and misfortune and point out the way to escape. What is painful is that people reverse the proper order of things, bring all manner of wrongdoing upon themselves, and end up harming and cutting themselves. Mountain trees, lamp oil, cassia, and lacquer are all subject to this fate—how much more so are people?
Plain-Language Interpretation
(Commentary)
The “small” mentioned earlier refers to how people know only that the usefulness of what is useful can benefit the world, but do not know that the usefulness of what is useless can keep them from coming to harm themselves. People are all sunk in worldly fame and profit, without giving thought to the Way beyond the world. This is truly lamentable.
Inner Chapter, “The Sign of Virtue Complete,” Chapter Five: Daoists take cultivating De as their foundation, and nourishing Qi and refining the body as the groundwork. Although Wang Tai, Shentu Jia, and Shushan Wuzi all had the foundation of cultivated De, they suffered punishments inflicted by Heaven. How could such punishments be undone? This shows that their De was not yet complete: their natural abilities were incomplete, so their De could not show itself outwardly. Only Ai Taituo was different. The following story is a parable about someone who could live alongside such a person: the arts of obtaining the medicine and attaining the Elixir are what it means for one’s abilities to be complete while De remains unmanifested. This person represents what the active sage described in the four lines beginning “Knowing is a calamity” cannot accomplish. The four lines beginning “Do not use knowledge” represent the sage of Wuwei, whose De is supreme. Once their work is complete, those whose De is lower ultimately return to the same state as those whose De is supreme: De fills them inwardly, and the Qi of the Dao accords with them outwardly. The final passage, “Heaven has chosen your form; you rely only on your firm grasp of ‘hard’ and ‘white’ to make yourself heard,” expresses Hui Shi’s shame: if De is not complete within, how can one expect the Qi of the Dao to accord with one outwardly?
In the state of Lu there was a man with one foot, named Wang Tai. Almost as many people studied with him as studied with Confucius. Chang Ji asked Confucius, “Wang Tai has only one foot, yet almost half the disciples in Lu study with him, as many as study with you. He stands without teaching and sits without discussing anything—just as you wish to teach without words, rather than through ordinary means. People come to him empty-handed but leave with something real. Is there really a teaching that uses no words, a way for the mind to be formed without visible signs? (A body lacking a limb is called ‘without visible signs’; the original spirit made whole is called ‘the mind formed.’) What sort of person is he?”
Confucius said, “That gentleman is a sage. I, Kong Qiu, have merely fallen behind and have yet to go and study with him. I will take him as my teacher; how much more so should those who are not my equal? Why limit it to the state of Lu? I will lead people throughout the world to study with him.”
Chang Ji said, “He has only one foot, yet surpasses you, sir, and is far removed from ordinary people. Someone like that must surely have…”
If I use my mind, how can I be like that alone? Confucius said: “Life and death are great matters, yet the Perfected One does not change along with them.” (Ordinary people regard life and death as momentous transformations. The Perfected One sees them as the alternation of day and night, and the mind is not shaken by them.)
Even if Heaven and Earth were overturned and collapsed, I would not be lost along with them. (When someone loses something, we say it is “lost.” The overturning and collapse of Heaven and Earth means a great calamity, as if the sky fell and the earth sank. Even if Heaven and Earth themselves collapse, my mind does not collapse with them. How could I be “lost” along with them?)
He understands what is without borrowed existence and does not move along with things. (People say that being alive is like borrowing: one’s face is borrowed, and one’s body too. When a person is entirely without anything borrowed, the body perishes and the spirit moves on. The Perfected One regards the absence of borrowed existence as liberation, while the spirit endures and does not move on with the body.)
He governs the transformations of things according to their allotted destinies and keeps to their source. (“Creation” brings something into being from nothing; “transformation” turns what exists into nothing. Each thing has its allotted destiny. The Perfected One sees that although all things transform, there is something within me that does not transform, because an inner “master” is present. To keep to one’s source is to hold fast to the original spirit, the true sovereign within me.)
Chang Ji asked, “What does this mean?” Confucius said:
Seen from the standpoint of difference, liver and gallbladder are as far apart as Chu and Yue; seen from the standpoint of sameness, all things are one. (When people look with a mind fixed on differences, liver and gallbladder may seem as far apart as the states of Chu and Yue—how much more so things that are farther apart! It is like seeing father and son as strangers, or people on the same boat as distant barbarians. When people look with a mind attuned to sameness, all things and I are one body—how much more so things that are closer! It is a state like saying, “The people are my fellow beings, and things are my companions.”)
One who is like this no longer knows what the ears and eyes are suited for, but lets the mind wander in the harmony of De (Virtue/Power). (Since such a person sees all things as one, the body too is one. The ears and eyes can serve one another in hearing and seeing: this means not being confined to what each sense is supposed to do, but letting the mind wander in the harmony of De—hearing what should be heard and not hearing what should not; seeing what should be seen and not seeing what should not.)
A thing regards what it shares in oneness and does not see what it has lost; to lose a foot is like losing a clod of earth. (Where there is oneness, there is also difference; where there is gain, there is loss. A thing looks only to what is “one”: that each thing has within it the oneness of a Taiji (Supreme Ultimate). Losing one’s foot is like losing a clod of earth.)
Reading notes on the Commentary and Subcommentary to the True Scripture of Southern Florescence
“Alone he attains it, while others do not alone lose it” means holding fast to one’s root. When the True Ruler—the inner sovereign, one’s original nature—is present, the whole body is like dust, present everywhere. To regard a lost foot as though it were merely lost earth does not mean it may be discarded carelessly.
Chang Ji said, “Wang Tai used his intelligence to awaken to the mind, then used the mind to awaken to the minds of ordinary people. Why should the myriad things esteem him as the foremost?”
Confucius said, “People do not look at their reflections in flowing water, but in still water. Only ‘stillness’ can quiet every kind of agitation.” The mind that guards the root is a settled mind. The human mind moves like water; still water reflects forms, and a settled mind can quiet the many thoughts.
Of those who received their mandate from Earth, only the pine and cypress attained its vital energy in its pure form, remaining green in winter and summer. Of those who received their mandate from Heaven, only Shun attained Heaven’s mandate in its pure form, able to bring life forth rightly and transform all beings rightly. The pine and cypress received Earth’s vital energy in its pure form; Shun received Heaven’s mandate in its pure form.
“Proof of preserving the beginning” and “the reality of fearlessness” mean keeping to the evidence of one’s original state and the truth of fearlessness. A single warrior can enter an army of nine divisions, advancing without retreat. To preserve one’s original nature is to guard the root; to guard the root is to preserve the beginning. Without the firmness of Heaven’s De, one cannot hold fast for long without losing it. This is like the reality of fearlessness: one person dares to enter an army of nine divisions. Those who seek fame and hold themselves in high regard before a ruler are still unafraid of life and death. How much more so for one who, through the formless, governs the formed, taking Heaven and Earth as their own “officials”—their subjects—and who, through what has no substance, contains the myriad things, making all things their own “storehouse.” They dwell only in the head, torso, hands, and feet—the six bodily parts—regarding the ears and eyes as images and using keen perception as a metaphor. Among all that is known, there is one kind of knowing, and the mind has never died. As Guo Xiang explains: when knowing goes along with transformation, there is nowhere it does not fit; this is one kind of knowing. When the mind goes along with life and death, there is no moment that is not life; this is the mind that has never died.
Would he still need to choose an auspicious day to “ascend and depart”—to transcend his bodily form and rise through transformation? People can only follow him. How could he be willing to treat external things as matters of great importance? Buddhist teaching holds that the human body is provisionally assembled from the four great elements: earth, water, fire, and wind. Wang Tai is a person who has attained the Way; would he still need to choose a day to ascend and depart? People can only follow him. How could he allow things to rule him?
One who rises above “provisional conjunction”—the temporary coming together that forms a living being—is followed by others who learn the Dao (the Way) from them. Why would such a person make “teaching others” their own concern?
Shentu Jia, who had lost a foot, studied the Dao under Bohun Wuren alongside Zichan of Zheng. Zichan said to him, “If I leave first, you stay; if you leave first, I’ll stay.” He felt awkward about the two of them entering and leaving together and sitting in the same hall. The next day, they were seated once more in the same hall, on the same mat. Zichan again said, “If I leave first, you stay; if you leave first, I’ll stay. I’m about to leave now. Can you stay, then? Or not?”
“You see the minister of state”—Zichan’s way of referring to himself—“and don’t make way. Do you consider the minister your equal?” Shentu Jia replied, “A teacher’s school is supposed to be a place where people discuss De (Virtue/Power). Yet here someone is discussing rank and status! You delight in your position as minister and want to put yourself above everyone, wherever you go.” He was mocking Zichan for flaunting his office and always wanting to go first. I have heard that the brighter a mirror is, the more clearly it shows dust and grime, making them harder to pretend away. If you insist on preventing them from showing, the mirror will no longer be clear. Only by spending a long time with the worthy can one avoid mistakes. What you value is the teacher—the Great Dao—yet what comes out of your mouth is still talk like this, quibbling over who should go first. Isn’t that going too far?
Zichan said, “You are already as you are”—that is, a person with a missing foot—“yet you still want to compare your De with Yao’s. Have you ever measured your De? Isn’t it too small to make you reflect on yourself?” He was saying that Shentu Jia did not know his own limits.
Shentu Jia replied: “There are many who admit their faults yet still think they do not deserve to die; few admit nothing, yet think they deserve to live. To know that some things cannot be helped and to accept them as fate is something only a person of De can do. To live within the range of Hou Yi’s bow—the ancient master archer—stands for the world of people who seek their luck and take risks. The ‘center’ is the very middle of the target, where Hou Yi was sure to hit. Yet sometimes someone was not struck: that was fate—someone had luckily escaped death. Many have laughed at me because my foot is incomplete while theirs are whole. I would flare up in anger and go to see the teacher, but after meeting him I would leave, my anger having fallen away.” Seeing the perfected person understand fate and forget the body had undone the anger he had felt before.
This passage comes from the story in the “Sign of Virtue Complete” chapter of the Zhuangzi about Shentu Jia and Zichan studying under the same teacher. The commentaries explain that one who has truly attained the Dao does not make teaching others a profession; Zichan brought his status as minister into the school, discussing rank and power rather than De; and Shentu Jia answered by understanding and accepting fate, using Hou Yi’s “range of the bow” as an image of life’s dangers and the good fortune of escaping them.
Could it be that the Master used the Way of goodness to cleanse my heart, or that I am able to reflect on myself? I have been in your company for nineteen years, yet you have never noticed that I am a man with a mutilated body.
Now you and I meet within the realm of Virtue, but you go looking for me beyond the body. Is that not going too far?
Zichan was immediately unsettled and changed his expression. “Please say no more.” (This was a way of showing admiration and praising the other man.)
In the state of Lu there was a man with a mutilated body named Shushan. Because he had lost his toes, people called him “Toeless.” He went to see Confucius, walking on his heels. Confucius said, “You were careless in the past, and so you suffered this misfortune. Now that you have come, how can anything make up for it?”
Toeless said, “Because I did not understand what mattered and treated myself recklessly, I lost my feet. I have come now because there is something in me more precious than my feet: the True Ruler—my true nature, my original mind—still remains, and so I strive to preserve it. Heaven covers everything, and Earth supports everything. I thought you were like Heaven and Earth. How was I to know you would be like this—concerned only with the body and counting past faults?”
Confucius said, “I, Qiu”—Confucius’s self-reference—“am truly shallow. Why don’t you come in, sir, and tell me your views?” After Toeless left, Confucius said to his disciples, “You must strive to learn. Toeless is a man with a mutilated body, yet he still seeks to learn and make amends for his past mistakes. How much more should those whose Virtue is complete do so?”
Toeless said to Lao Dan, “As for Confucius, I fear he has not yet reached the Way of the Perfected. Why is he so ceremonious and deferential, treating people with the manners of a student? And why does he eagerly pursue a strange and fantastic reputation, thinking he can make up for bad deeds by doing good and win extraordinary praise? He does not realize that the Perfected regard such pursuits as shackles that bind them”—the wooden restraint on the feet is called a zhi, and the one on the hands a gu; both are instruments of punishment. (“Shackles” refers to these restraints: the zhi is worn on the feet, and the gu on the hands.)
Toeless criticizes Confucius for remaining constrained by reputation and the body, while the true “one who values the feet” is the inner true nature. Confucius humbles himself and urges his disciples to learn from Toeless. Through this dialogue, Zhuangzi uses a man with a mutilated body to show that complete Virtue matters more than outward form.
The Nanhua True Scripture: An Explanatory Commentary in Plain Language
On “Fame” and Bondage
Someone says: A sage has no name to begin with. Once people know him by a name, it becomes a constraint.
Laozi says: Why not simply have that person—Confucius—regard life and death as one continuous thread? There is no “life” to begin with, so who would name “death”? And regard what is acceptable and unacceptable as one throughout. There is no “unacceptable” to begin with, so where could “unacceptable” come from? Could this free him from his bonds?
No-Toes says: That is a punishment imposed by Heaven. How could it be undone? (Lu Xixing says: Good and evil teachings are both illusory teachings; good and evil names are both deceptive names. The teaching of nonduality simply loosens attachments and removes bonds. Originally there is nothing—where could dust arise? But someone who has received Heaven’s punishment is as if suspended by the Heavenly Emperor; the bonds cannot be undone. This is fixed and cannot be changed.)
Duke Ai of Lu Asks Confucius about the “Ugly Man” of Wei
Duke Ai of Lu asks Confucius: In the state of Wei there is a man with an ugly appearance, named Aitai Ta. (“Tai” rhymes with “terrace”; “Ta” rhymes with “camel.” It is a personal name.) Men who spend time with him become so attached that they cannot leave him.
(The passage that follows makes extensive use of parable; it can also be understood in terms of gathering medicinal herbs and refining elixirs.)
Women who see him tell their parents: “Rather than become another man’s principal wife, I would rather be this gentleman’s concubine.” More than ten women have said this, and they keep coming. I have never heard that he takes the lead and speaks first; he only responds and echoes what others say. He holds no position as ruler from which to save people from death, and receives no stipend with which to fill their bellies. His ugly appearance has startled the world, yet he only echoes others instead of leading them; his wisdom shows no far-reaching plans beyond the borders of his state. And yet, when it comes to relations between men and women, people always come to him to settle their affairs. This man must have something exceptional about him. I summoned him to see for myself, and indeed his ugliness startled the world. After spending less than a few months with him, I found him extraordinary; before a year had passed, I trusted him. The state had no chief minister, so I entrusted him with its government. He was reserved, and only then would he respond; he was unassuming, as if about to decline. I felt ashamed of myself, yet in the end I still handed the state over to him. Before long, he left me and went away. I felt gloomy and bereft, as though I had lost something. It seemed there was nothing left in the state that could make me happy.
Notes
“Lead / echo”: To lead is to speak or act first; to echo is to follow and respond. Aitai Ta “echoes but does not lead”: he does not take the foremost position, but only follows and responds.
“Fill people’s bellies”: “Fill” can mean to make full, as with the full moon. Here it means that he does not rely on a stipend to provide others with food and clothing.
“Punishment imposed by Heaven”: A constraint imposed by Heaven that cannot be undone. No-Toes believes Confucius’s predicament falls into this category and cannot be resolved simply by “making life and death one” and “making the acceptable and unacceptable one.”
Aitai Ta: The ugly man in a Zhuangzi parable. His inner De is so abundant that people forget his outward appearance and feel drawn to him. Duke Ai hands over the state, then loses his place in it; this episode illustrates “valuing De and forgetting appearance” and “possessing a state yet finding no joy in it.”
“What kind of person is this, to inspire such devotion?” Zhongni said, “I, Kong Qiu, was once sent on a mission to Chu. By chance, I saw piglets still nursing beside their dead mother. Before long, they all turned away and ran off, because they could no longer recognize her as their mother; she no longer seemed like one of their kind. What they were attached to was not the mother’s body, but what had made that body their mother.
“When a man has fallen in battle, he need not be buried with the ritual fans used to guide a coffin. Nor would anyone cherish, without reason, a shoe left behind by someone whose feet have been cut off. In both cases, the root has been lost. A warrior’s root is his courage; a traveler’s root is his feet. Without a root, a thing is of no use; with one, it can be put to use. So the reason people rely on Ai Taituo must lie elsewhere.
“Attendants close to the Son of Heaven do not cut their nails or pierce their ears. A man who has just married is kept within the palace grounds and is no longer sent out for forced labor. These measures preserve the body intact. If bodily wholeness is considered worth protecting in this way, how much more so is a person whose De is complete? Now Ai Taituo is trusted before he has spoken, welcomed before he has achieved anything, and others would even offer him their state, fearing he might refuse. This must be a case of ‘complete in capacity, with De that does not show itself.’”
Duke Ai asked, “What does it mean to be complete in capacity?” Zhongni said, “Life and death, survival and ruin, hardship and success, poverty and wealth, honor and disgrace, hunger and thirst, cold and heat—all are changes in the course of events and the turning of Heaven’s mandate. They appear before us as day and night alternate, endlessly revolving. And one who truly understands the situation…”
It cannot regulate the beginning. Regulation follows fixed laws, but it can apply only after a beginning; it cannot regulate the very reality of “a beginning not yet having begun.” So one cannot speak of “the beginning of a beginning not yet begun.” For this reason, it is not enough to make a person become immersed in things—in worldly desires—and it cannot intrude upon the spiritual abode. The spiritual abode is the numinous terrace, the dwelling place of the spirit. If one truly understands the primordial reality of “a beginning not yet having begun,” how could one let Great Harmony become immersed in the spiritual abode?
Let the harmony and ease of De flow freely without losing one’s openness of speech. This is the same “openness” referred to in the Dao De Jing’s phrase “stopping up the openings”: it means the mouth, and thus speech. Let day and night pass without a gap, renewing oneself each day, and meet all things with the springtime of life. This is what happens when encounters with things give rise to the seasons within the heart. Ordinary people fear others’ judgments; within every narrow opening, the wintry desolation of autumn and winter prevails, and in their encounters they contend with things, struggling inwardly day after day. But for the sage, there is no gap in day or night that is not filled with the life-giving spring. Even in encounters, the heart holds the generative impulse of all four seasons. This is Great Harmony: not becoming immersed in the spiritual abode. This is called “one’s capacities being complete”: when one’s De remains unchanged amid the feelings stirred by contact with things, one’s capacities are complete. When De is not displayed, it is abundant, and people transform of themselves.
What does it mean for De not to be displayed? Consider a level surface: its perfection is like water gathered in stillness. Nothing in the world is more level than still water. It can serve as a standard by which all things take their measure; inwardly it preserves itself, and outwardly it is not disturbed. De is the cultivation that brings harmony to completion: the stillness of water resembles the harmony of De, and preserving this nature’s inner harmony is the cultivation of De. When De is not displayed, things cannot depart from it; De becomes visible through things.
One day Duke Ai said to Minzi, “In the past, I faced south and ruled the world, taking charge of the laws that governed the people and worrying over their deaths. I thought myself supremely wise. Now I have heard the words of a Perfected Person, and I fear I lack true De. I used my person carelessly and nearly lost my state. Confucius and I are not ruler and subject; we are friends in De.” Hearing of the complete De, even Duke Ai wished to leave his body behind and forget distinctions of rank and status.
Qizhi Li, a hunchbacked, lame man with a misshapen body, and Wuchun, a man without lips, went to persuade Duke Ling of Wei. The duke liked them very much and thought they were more complete than people with sound bodies. Another man, Huan Gen, had a long, thin neck and narrow shoulders, while Wengyan Da Ying had a large goiter on his neck. They went to persuade Duke Huan of Qi, who also admired them and thought they were more complete than people with sound bodies.
Thus, when one’s De has its strengths, one forgets the flaws of one’s appearance. If a person forgets what should not be forgotten—their De—and does not forget what should be forgotten—their appearance, this is called true forgetting. Appearance is what should be forgotten; De is what should not be forgotten. So one who forgets their appearance has not truly forgotten anything, while one who clings to their appearance but forgets their De has truly forgotten.
The sage’s mind roams freely, regarding cleverness as a source of calamity, ritual constraints as something that makes one rigid, De and insight as tools for social dealings, and technical skill as something to trade. The sage does not scheme, so what need is there for cleverness? The sage does not carve or polish, remaining simple and natural, so what need is there for rigidity? The sage lacks nothing, complete as a whole, so what need is there for De and insight? The sage does not trade, keeping things hidden as though empty, so what need is there for technical skill?
Bixuzi says: Dung beetles roll balls of dung and spiders spin webs—these are clever acts without scheming. Clouds gather around dragons, winds follow tigers, and pines grow alongside climbing vines—these are bonds without carving or polishing. Birds and beasts dwell in forests and mountains, while fish and turtles swim freely in rivers and lakes—this is De that lacks nothing. All things each find their own benefit and make their own living—this is commerce without trading.
These four—no scheming, no carving, no loss, and no trading—are gifts of nature. Such gifts are the provisions Heaven grants. Since one already receives sustenance from Heaven, why rely on human cleverness? If these four are put to use, they are products of human effort, not gifts of nature. If they are left unused, one roams in the Dao of Heaven. Roaming in the Dao of Heaven is a gift of nature; a gift of nature is sustenance granted by Heaven. Since the sage already receives sustenance from Heaven, why rely on human cleverness?
One has a human form but lacks human feelings and judgments—all four are left unused. Having a human form allows one to join the human community; lacking human feelings and judgments keeps right and wrong from attaching to oneself.
Viewed through the Dao, all things follow their own necessary principles. If we look upon things from a narrow, partial awareness, we cannot judge others harshly by right and wrong. From the perspective of ordinary people, not everyone sees things from the same angle. If everyone saw alike, how could we distinguish one side from the other?
The world does not belong to one person alone, and the cosmos is not a realm inhabited only by me. When one clings to self-interest and quietly assumes that one’s words must be reasonable and one’s actions must accord with the Way, blaming others may not always be unjust—but those who suppress themselves will inevitably reproach themselves. This is why the sage, holding himself to the highest standard of fairness, censures them.
In the past, Foxi Buge did not pursue the former ruler’s crimes, but instead wrote of his own guilt. This was the Master’s way of refusing remonstrance. In the end, the Master was driven out by King Qingxiang of Chu; the hegemonic enterprise declined, and the six states fell into disarray. Looking at it now, even the sage’s wisdom did not amount to perfect fairness.
You and I are both people, so why give rise to a sense of “you” and “me”? Yet the sage worries and guards against trouble in this way, anxious about gains and losses. How is he any different from ordinary people?
That is one thing; this is another. The two are distinct. I need only follow what I take to be right, without concerning myself with what the other takes to be wrong. First I must be free of the distinction between “other” and “self” in my own mind; only then can I be free of both.
You and I are both people, so why give rise to a sense of “you” and “me”?
To understand things by making distinctions is to focus on what can be understood, while the things themselves have aspects of concealment and disclosure that understanding cannot reach. Seen from a partial perspective, I am here and the other is there; like looking through a tube, one is bound to miss the truth. But when concealment and disclosure are grasped together, things and I are no longer two, and we arrive at what is without cause. With no cause, there is no fixed mind. Then the presence or absence of mind is no longer bound to things, and we can roam together with the Dao.
Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Scripture of Southern Florescence
(Continued from the previous passage) Swaying after female beauty depletes Jing and Qi. Playing a withered paulownia lute and sleeping soundly with eyes closed—those who nourish their spirit through external things and amuse themselves with music may lean against a tree and sing for a long time, or embrace a withered paulownia and sleep. Though they still retain a little human feeling, in the end they remain ordinary people. To harm the body through external things and the spirit through desire is, in truth, a great loss.
(Another discussion) If one selects someone solely for his appearance and treats him generously, yet he cannot fill himself inwardly with De or make his outward bearing accord with his De, and instead seeks fame through debating techniques such as “hardness and whiteness,” how could he withstand scrutiny, like something that remains thin after grinding or stays unblackened after dyeing?
The main idea of this chapter: De is inward, form is outward. One may forget one’s appearance, but must not forget one’s De. Make De the basis and guard the “root”; take preserving the beginning as one’s foundation. The numinous chamber, where Shen is stored, is the gathering place of the spirit—the chamber of a person’s Shen. It is precisely where one guards the root and preserves the beginning. All cultivation of De must begin here. When De is full within, it naturally shows itself in outward accord. Then Heaven and Earth are like one’s official residence, and the myriad things like one’s storehouse.
The chapter opens with Wang Tai of Lu, whose body was incomplete: one should learn to forget the body. What he lacked was only physical form; what he preserved intact was Shen. Those who followed him received his wordless teaching and fulfilled the Dao of making the mind whole. Ordinary people regard life and death as great transformations, while the spirit-like person sees them as morning and evening. They are changes among things; I possess within myself what does not change or move. I let the myriad things transform, while I hold fast to their root. This is what the alchemical classics mean when they say: nourish what has no image, and its image will therefore endure; guard what has no form, and its form will remain wholly true.
The gallbladder is attached to the liver: the liver governs deliberation, and the gallbladder governs decision. Without an inward master, even the liver and gallbladder cannot fulfill their functions—how much less could they be as estranged as the states of Chu and Yue? One who can guard the root sees the myriad things and himself as one, like an ordinary person. The ears and eyes each fulfill their functions; the mind wanders in harmony with De, and gain and loss become indistinguishable. How, then, could one know of the loss of a foot? Water can serve as a mirror for things only when it is still. Likewise, only by centering oneself on where one comes to rest can one bring others to rest. Because the pine and cypress have found where to rest, they remain green in winter and summer. Because Shun rested in what is right, hardship and success were one and the same to him. If I do not preserve the condition of “having never begun to have a beginning,” I cannot guard my root.
What a brave warrior preserves is Qi, as though one breath could command all three armies. How much more, then, does the Perfected One preserve Shen! I existed before Heaven, and so Heaven and Earth can be my official residence. Within what has no thing, the myriad things stand in abundance; therefore, they can be my storehouse.
Plain-Language Interpretation
First passage: Shentu Jia and the ruler discuss virtue
Though Fu Zu had lost one foot, his heart had not died. Earlier, the text said “discern what is without pretense”: what is false is the body. Here, choosing a day to “ascend beyond” means going straight beyond earth, water, fire, and wind—the four great elements in Buddhist teaching. The text then introduces the story of Shentu Jia, who had only one foot yet walked and sat beside a ruler to discuss the Dao: judge people by their virtue, not their appearance. Zichan rebuked him for not standing and sitting according to proper rules, seeing power but not virtue. A mirror can show a person’s appearance, but it cannot reveal their virtue. If people are judged only by appearance, Shentu Jia seems contemptible; if the worthy judge by virtue rather than looks, he deserves esteem. As for whether a foot remains or is lost, those who do not understand think I am at fault; those who do understand know that my fate lies in the hands of Siming, the deity who governs lifespan. And this is not only about one foot. In all matters of reputation and standing, those who succeed are thought to be skilled, while those who gain recognition are likened to Hou Yi’s bowstring, the string of a master archer. Whoever moves upon that string will be struck by Hou Yi; whether they are hit or escape depends not on cleverness or skill, but on whether their fate permits it.
I have heard that virtue is within, while the body is outside; the inner and outer have long had nothing to do with one another. To abandon what is within and seek what is outside—is that really what the worthy do? The text then cites the “footless” Shushan Wuzhi, whose foot had been cut off, to show that preserving virtue matters more than preserving the body. People today prize life, but what they prize is the body. Who knows that when Wuzhi came to visit, there was something more worthy of respect than a foot: the esteem of virtue, not the esteem of the body. His resolve to be whole was profound. Heaven and Earth cover and sustain all things without choosing among them; how could the Master choose whom to teach? Alas, the Master worried about those who feared that after death their names would go unhonored. Thus, those who seek fame through “the strange, the bizarre, and the fantastic” end up shackled by reputation. Anyone caught in these bonds loves life with one heart and hates death with another, never knowing where life comes from or where death leads. Only by awakening to the traces of one’s arrival can one recognize the road of departure: life and death are a single thread. If one takes what can be done as right, one must take what cannot be done as wrong. Yet one does not see that this is one kind of right and wrong, and that is another; the possible contains the impossible, and the impossible contains the possible. What can and cannot be done are, in the end, of one continuity. The Buddhists say, “Where can you send what is evil when you cast it away? Who will be left to keep what is good when you take it?” With this understanding, one may avoid being bound by the pursuit of fame.
Second passage: Aitaita and the metaphor of Neidan
The passage about Aitaita, the ugly but virtuous figure in a chapter of the Zhuangzi, concludes with a metaphor for entering the inner chamber and gathering the medicine in the gate of mystery—the Daoist path of cultivation. A great man thinks of him but cannot leave him, and wishes to make him a companion. A woman is content to become a concubine: Metal loves Wood with benevolence, and Wood loves Metal with dutiful compliance. This refers to Yin-Yang joining through the Five Phases’ cycles of generation and overcoming. The passage continues the earlier idea of not being shackled by the pursuit of fame, using companionship and gathering the medicine as images for cultivating the Dao and seeking virtue without being constrained by appearance.
Note: The original is written in the style of commentaries, drawing repeatedly on figures and arguments from works such as the Zhuangzi’s “Sign of Virtue Complete,” while also incorporating Buddhist and Daoist language. In a Daoist context, the final passage about Aitaita and gathering the medicine is often read as coded language for Neidan practice, with references to entering an inner chamber, companions, and Metal and Wood. This note provides context only and does not elaborate on specific methods.
Plain-Language Interpretation
“They sing, and others join in harmony; they heed only the words of the one who presides over the Elixir Way.” — Everyone joins in the response, and all follow the guidance of the person presiding over the Elixir Way.
“Though he has no sovereign’s authority to rescue people from death, all those who enter the cultivation chamber together as companions obtain the medicine and live long.” — Although he lacks the power of a ruler to save people from death, the companions who enter the cultivation chamber together can all obtain the Elixir and attain longevity.
“Though he has no stipend to fill people’s bellies, before learning the Way their bellies are empty; after entering the chamber, they empty the heart and fill the belly.” — Though there is no salary to feed them, before learning the Way their bellies are empty. After entering the chamber to cultivate, they must “empty the heart and fill the belly”—letting the mind become clear and still while filling the Dantian (energy center).
“When female and male join, solitary Yin cannot give birth and solitary Yang cannot bring anything to completion. When two people are of one mind, their strength can cut through metal.” — When Yin and Yang unite, Yin alone cannot give life, and Yang alone cannot bring things to completion. The two must work together with one heart; their combined strength is enough to cut metal.
“A piglet does not eat its dead mother: it cherishes her spirit, not her body. This illustrates that people know only to consume the mother’s blood and essence acquired after birth, but do not know to consume the primordial mother Qi.” — A piglet will not eat its dead mother; what it cherishes is her spirit rather than her body. This is a metaphor for people who know only to take in postnatal essence and blood, but do not know to take in the primordial mother Qi.
“Those who die in battle are a metaphor for those who lose their lives through the methods of deviant schools, gathering and battling through sexual cultivation.” — Those killed in battle represent people who follow unorthodox paths and die through “gathering and battling”—improper sexual practices of gathering and replenishing vital essence.
“Shoes are of no use to someone whose feet have been cut off. This illustrates that a person without De cannot obtain the medicine even if they know how to gather it, just as someone without feet cannot walk.” — Shoes are useless to someone whose feet have been severed. Likewise, a person lacking De (Virtue/Power) cannot obtain the Elixir even if they know the method for gathering the medicine, just as a person without feet cannot walk.
“Being the Son of Heaven is a metaphor for the one who presides over the Elixir Way.” — “Being the Son of Heaven” represents the person presiding over Elixir cultivation.
“Not cut or pierced” is a metaphor for the cultivation companion in the chamber: like unworked jade, whole and uncarved, she remains in a primordial state of purity. — Neither cutting nor piercing her represents how the companion in chamber cultivation is like an uncarved jade stone, whole and unworked, retaining primordial purity.
“Taking a wife means taking the cauldron. Those who remain outside must not meet her; servants must not be sent on other errands, lest their spirits be wearied.” — Taking a wife means taking the “cauldron,” a vessel for refining the Elixir and a metaphor for the cultivation companion. Those who stay outside must not see her, and servants must not be sent to other tasks that might exhaust their spirits and harm their essence.
“Gathering the medicine is still only a way to preserve the body; preserving De, by contrast, is a matter of preserving the spirit.” — Gathering the medicine merely preserves the body, whereas “preserving De” is the greater undertaking of preserving the spirit.
“There is a further stage: if Foundation Building, refining the self, forming the embryo, and leaving the embryo are all carried out suitably, this is called ‘having all one’s faculties intact.’” — Beyond this is a higher stage: Foundation Building, refining the self, forming the embryo, and leaving the embryo must all be accomplished as they should be. This is called “having all one’s faculties intact.”
“Wearing coarse clothes while carrying jade in one’s breast” is called “De that does not show itself.” — To wear rough cloth while keeping jade close to the heart is to embody De without displaying it outwardly.
“Such a person lets the world change and the seasons turn, while the Great Harmony in the inner spirit palace remains unchanged.” — No matter how the world shifts or the seasons pass, the Great Harmony within this person’s inner spirit palace remains constant.
“By communicating in advance with that side, one does not lose the Qi of the western Dui trigram. Dui represents the young woman and also damage or loss; the Yellow Matriarch must watch over it, so that the young woman of Dui does not escape or get lost, without interruption day or night.” — One must establish communication in advance with that side while retaining the Qi of the western Dui trigram. Dui represents a young woman and also damage or loss. The “Yellow Matriarch,” a harmonizing figure in cultivation, must keep watch so that the young woman’s Qi associated with Dui does not dissipate, day or night.
“Not joining with that side is winter storage; joining is bringing spring to things. Use the primordial mother Qi from that side to subdue the postnatal child Qi within oneself. Gathering the medicine and obtaining the Elixir always depend on timing.” — Refraining from union with the other side is “winter storage,” the conserving of vital energy; union is “bringing spring to things,” allowing that side’s spring Qi to arise. Use the other side’s primordial mother Qi to subdue one’s own postnatal child Qi. Gathering the medicine and obtaining the Elixir always require the right timing.
“What is meant by ‘the right time arising in the heart’ is also what is meant by having all one’s faculties intact.” — The phrase “the right time arises in the heart” expresses the same principle as “having all one’s faculties intact.”
“What does ‘De that does not show itself’ mean? On steep ground, water rushes along; on level ground, it comes to rest, and people take level ground as their standard. When level, water can preserve itself within; when still, it is not disturbed from without. The stillness of water is like the harmony of De.” — What does it mean for De not to show itself? Water flows swiftly over steep ground and settles on level ground, which people regard as the standard. On level ground, it can preserve itself inwardly; at rest, it is not disturbed from outside. The calm of water resembles the harmony of De.
“They take the achievement of harmony as their cultivation, and things’ inability to separate as De that does not show itself. This means being one and undivided, unchanged by life or death.” — They regard the attainment of harmony as cultivation, and the inseparability of things as De that does not show itself. This means remaining united and undivided, unchanged by life or death.
“Aitaita was fully capable of embodying this.”
Commentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence: A Plain-Language Interpretation
Duke Ling of Wei and Duke Huan of Qi liked the example of Zhili, whose neck bore a large goiter, though he could not be counted as a “whole person.” The example shows that preserving the body alone does not make one whole, because the spirit is still incomplete. It describes a person who has not forgotten what should be forgotten. In the phrase “let the mind roam,” “roam” means that the mind can move freely within the Dao (the Way).
The five lines beginning “The sage has somewhere to roam” describe the sage in the postnatal sense, who takes Kan to fill Li. Such a sage regards the contrivances of foundational training as a blight, treats a pact with companions as glue, takes the virtue of true colorlessness as a means of connection, and sees having both method and resources as a matter of trade—yet makes no plans. The final four lines describe the sage in the prenatal sense, whose cultivation retains childlike innocence: Why force things with artifice? Why rely on intellect? Why use glue when nothing has been cut away? Why speak of virtue when nothing has been lost? Why trade when one need not depend on methods or resources? The prenatal mother Qi on which these four—intellect, glue, virtue, and trade—depend is already present within. It is called “Heaven’s food.” Why, then, borrow from the postnatal to restore the prenatal?
The postnatal sage is different. He has a human form, yet his body is like withered wood; he has no human feelings, and his mind is like dead ashes. So he joins with those of his kind without making distinctions between right and wrong, and thereby uses the postnatal to return to the prenatal. Hui Shi knew only how to increase life and preserve the body. He could not guard himself from external influences or close off his inner life. Instead, he let likes and dislikes harm his life, while his spirit busied itself ceaselessly, restless all day. His De was not full within, yet he wanted to make his name through arguments about the hard and the white. Could that work?
Inner Chapters: “The Great and Venerable Teacher,” Chapter Six
In learning, one accumulates day by day, taking “knowledge” as one’s teacher; everyone has a teacher who is their own ancestor. In following the Dao, one diminishes day by day, taking “unknowing” as one’s teacher; all under Heaven share one Great and Venerable Teacher. Thus one can unite water and fire, life and death, and make one of what is not one, becoming a companion of Heaven. Learning comes from “killing life while already alive, and learning death before one has died.” Practice comes from forgetting benevolence and righteousness, forgetting ritual and music, letting the limbs fall away, dismissing the senses, and nurturing stillness. In this way, one begins as a human and returns to Heaven, begins with knowledge and returns to unknowing. Neither Heaven nor Earth can impoverish me, and the Controller of Fate cannot set limits on me. Is this not the Great and Venerable Teacher, the ancestral model whom all under Heaven, for generations without end, can follow?
To know what Heaven does (the natural) and to know what humans do is the highest attainment (when the human accords with Heaven, both are fulfilled). One who knows what Heaven does is born of Heaven: primordial Jing (essence), primordial Qi (vital energy), and primordial Shen (spirit). One who knows what humans do uses what their knowledge can know to nurture what their knowledge cannot know.
About the Part of Knowing That Is Not Known
The commentary says: Refine Jing, refine Qi, and refine Shen. What “knowing” can grasp is Shen. As for why Shen exists, and why Shen can recede into what is not Shen, that belongs to one’s nature. Refining Shen also means cultivating the aspect that is “not Shen.” But the part that is “not known” is the hardest to work on.
To live out the lifespan allotted by Heaven and not die prematurely may be called the utmost reach of knowing. The commentary says: Living out one’s allotted years is simply following one’s fate. It shows that one knows a great deal, but it is not yet true knowing.
Even so, there may still be troubles—the commentary explains, illnesses and hidden dangers.
“Knowing” often seems fitting only after something has been settled, yet what it awaits has not, in fact, been settled. The commentary says: Those who claim to know Heaven and humanity may not truly know. Often, only after a whole life has passed can it be determined whether they knew or did not know.
How can I be sure that what I call “Heaven” is not “humanity”? The commentary says: Heaven cannot be separated from humanity.
How can I be sure that what I call “humanity” is not “Heaven”? The commentary says: Humanity, too, depends on Heaven in order to come into being.
Moreover, only after there are True Persons can there be true knowing. The commentary says: A True Person preserves life; true knowing is understanding the Way of preserving life.
What is a True Person? The True Persons of antiquity did not mind having few companions. The commentary says: In a quiet, secluded room, one or two companions in the Dao are enough to practice Complete Perfection. They did not resent or reject a small gathering.
They did not feel compelled to bring someone to fulfillment just because that person wielded great power. The commentary says: Even when wealthy and influential people sought the Dao through their power, True Persons did not force their cultivation to completion simply because those people had impressive standing.
They did not speak casually to ordinary people. The commentary says: Only True Persons and true Confucian scholars understood Heaven and Earth fully. Ordinary scholars might not believe in the Way of Complete Perfection, so it was not proclaimed to them lightly.
People like this did not regret what had passed. When it was time to take responsibility, they did so, but did not claim the credit or take private satisfaction in it. The commentary says: If the Dao was not realized, they accepted Heaven’s decree without regret. If it was meant to be realized and was, they shared the joy with others instead of congratulating themselves.
People like this were not afraid when climbing high, were not wet when entering water, and were not burned when entering fire. This was a state attainable through knowing that could “ascend and reach” the Dao. The commentary says: “Ascend” means to rise. As the Vimalakirti Sutra says, earth, water, fire, and wind combine to form a person. True Persons can move beyond the spirit and enter the sacred, rising to the Great Dao above earth, water, fire, and wind.
The True Persons of antiquity had no distracting dreams in sleep and no needless worries when awake. They did not seek flavor in food, and their breathing was deep. The breathing of True Persons takes root in the heels, at the Yongquan point; the breathing of ordinary people remains only in the throat. One inhalation and one exhalation make a single breath. “Heel” refers to the Yongquan point on the sole of the foot. Ordinary people breathe through the mouth and nose, and their breath is shallow.
Ordinary people breathe through the throat; the breathing of the Realized One seems to begin at the soles of the feet, at the Yongquan point, as a current of Qi passes through the knees like a reed shoot, travels through the Coccygeal Pass and the Three Passes, rises to the Nivan Palace, then descends through the Chongji to the Yellow Court. Only then is one breath complete. This is why it is said that the Realized One “breathes through the heels.”
Explain the principle of heel breathing to ordinary people and try to convince them, and most will refuse to believe it. They will chatter and argue without end, like croaking frogs.
The deeper a person’s desires and cravings, the shallower their Heavenly potential. (Between Heaven and humanity, heavenly principle and desire rise and fall against each other. In people who croak like frogs, the whole heart is buried under desire, and Heavenly potential has disappeared. Here, “potential” refers to the “pivot” from which all things emerge and into which they return.)
The Realized Ones of antiquity did not rejoice at being alive or loathe the prospect of death. They went out without delight and returned without resistance, wandering freely as they went and came. That was all. They did not forget life’s beginning (they had to fathom the source of nature and life), nor did they grasp at life’s end (they dared not contend with the transformations of creation). They welcomed the life they received, then forgot what was acquired and returned to what was innate. This is called not letting the heart discard the Dao, and not using human effort to assist Heaven. (External things stir people endlessly, and people pursue desires without restraint, extinguishing heavenly principle. The Realized One knows that acting with intention departs from the Dao, and that “assisting Heaven” harms one’s nature, so they do neither.) Such a person is called a Realized One.
A person like this has a will devoted entirely to the Dao, a serene countenance, and a broad, expansive brow. In the early stages of cultivation, the impulse to kill is held in check within and the po is extinguished; their spirit is austere and clear, like autumn. Once the Dao is realized, their whole being teems with life, warm and gentle as spring. Their joy and anger accord with the four seasons; they live among all things in fitting harmony, yet others cannot know the limits of their power. (This is what is meant by “when the spirit is concentrated, things are not made harsh or defective.” Others cannot know them even at the ultimate point—what an extraordinary person!)
Thus the sage, in waging war, may destroy another’s state without losing the hearts of the people under Heaven.
A Plain-Language Reading of the Commentary on the True Scripture of Southern Florescence
The heart: Even when killed by others, one bears no resentment.
“Benefits extending to ten thousand generations”: One bestows benefits on generations to come without claiming to “love people”; one gives without seeking anything in return. So someone who prides himself on “delighting in the passage of all things” is still not a sage. Such a person differs from the sage who “transforms through all things and preserves the spirit,” transforming together with the Dao.
“Affection for one’s own”: Being good only to one’s family does not count as utmost benevolence, which is impartial “kindness.”
“The seasons”: Simply following the four seasons does not make one truly worthy. The worthy person entrusts things to nature, yet cannot arbitrarily alter the rise and fall of fate.
“Unable to discern benefit and harm”: Someone who cannot see how benefit and harm circulate and depend on one another is no gentleman.
“Pursuing a name and losing oneself”: Chasing fame at the cost of one’s original mind does not make one a true scholar. One who is good at being a scholar forgets fame and finds fulfillment in himself. Seeking a name means losing what is real, and so one is no scholar.
“Losing one’s body and failing to remain true”: To lose one’s true nature and retain only the body is to become a servant of the transformations of creation. Ordinary people lose what is true and thereby lose themselves, swept along by these transformations. But if one loses the body while one’s true nature remains, how could anyone make a servant of oneself?
Hu Buqi, Wuguang, Boyi and Shuqi, Jizi, Xu Yu, Jita, and Shentu Di (the sources for the later figures are difficult to establish): All of them were “servants in the service of others.” They accommodated what suited other people but failed to “find their own fulfillment in what suited them.” They gave themselves up to serve others, following others at the cost of harming themselves.
The perfected people of antiquity:
They seemed few in number, yet did not form factions (they were wholly impartial and joined no cliques). They seemed inadequate, yet did not curry favor (they were empty and did not flatter).
“Angular, yet not rigid”: Better to be flexible and accommodating than stubborn and inflexible.
“Expansive, yet not showy”: Their outward presence was open and unrestrained, yet free of empty adornment and ostentation (they did not cover up what was real with ornament, nor did they suppress their nature).
Bingbing: Their expression seemed quietly joyful; their hearts were open and at ease.
Cuihu: They seemed to respond to things only when there was no choice.
Chuhu: When they advanced, their bearing was full and composed, their inner refinement showing on their faces.
“In harmony, they rest in my De”: When they rested, they kept their De within themselves. “In an empty room, whiteness is born”; auspiciousness rests where it is meant to rest.
Lihu: At times they seemed fierce, shouting and scolding as though contending with the world.
Aohu: At times they acted freely and without restraint, beyond the control of others.
Lianhu: At times they seemed fond of shutting themselves away, neither seeing nor hearing, as though cut off from the world.
Manhu: At times they seemed to close their openings and nurture their Qi, feigning madness and forgetting speech, concealing their light so that others could not discern their true nature.
This passage uses a series of denials—“not a sage,” “not benevolent,” “not worthy,” “not a gentleman,” “not a scholar,” and “not a servant of others”—to distinguish the perfected person from the pursuit of social approval and fame, and from submission to things and other people. In the final section, the perfected person’s expressions and ways of responding to the world seem at times mad or withdrawn, while De remains within. This is a familiar paradoxical style in the Zhuangzi.
This passage elucidates the essential principles for cultivating the Dao to attain perfection. It begins by emphasizing the need for rigorous self-discipline akin to forging a sword (requiring repeated tempering), while employing ritual propriety as supportive nourishment (just as maintaining a blade demands meticulous care). True wisdom lies in apprehending the proper timing (just as internal alchemy (Neidan) and herb gathering require precise firing periods), while virtue (De) serves as the foundation for Dao cultivation (embodied in the three thousand merits and eight hundred virtuous deeds mentioned in Daoist tradition).
The text particularly highlights how "taking discipline as substance" resembles forging a divine sword that first slays the Three Corpses (the three destructive desires within the human body in Daoist physiology) before vanquishing external demonic forces. "Using ritual as wings" signifies that practitioners must first perfect their worldly conduct before achieving the transcendent state of feathery ascent. The timing of cultivation proves crucial—neither premature nor delayed—as Lüzu (Lü Dongbin) taught: "Those without virtue (De) are like legless men who cannot walk, while virtuous cultivators progress as naturally as walking with sound limbs."
True adepts (zhenren, or perfected beings) focus solely on the Great Dao as the singular "One"—which simultaneously represents the Golden Elixir (Jindan) and the cosmic origin. These realized beings harmonize all phenomenal distinctions (penetrating metal and stone or entering water and fire without obstruction), merging with the purely yang Heavenly Dao. Those yet unenlightened remain entangled in the yin-yang intermixed human realm. The authenticity of perfected beings lies precisely in achieving the unity of heaven and humanity, transcending all yin-yang dualities.
The conclusion observes that life and death alternate like day and night—an inexorable natural rhythm. The domains beyond human intervention precisely manifest the suchness of all things. Only by comprehending these fundamental principles can cultivators transcend material constraints.
《Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence》
Even the smallest details of life and death are beyond human control. This is the ordinary way things are in the world. But for a True Person—one who has attained the Dao—creation and transformation are in their own hands. How could they be unable to act?
People value even their bodies simply because Heaven gives birth to them and nurtures them as a father does. How much more, then, do they cherish what is more precious than the body? What is more extraordinary than the body is the Shen (spirit, true nature), not this fleshly form. Should we not consider what deserves our love? To care for the Shen, one must first quiet the Po (the yin spirit bound to the body, along with distracting thoughts).
People believe that having a ruler is better than relying on themselves, and are even willing to give their lives for that ruler. How much more, then, should they value what is closer to them than any ruler: their own “true” self? What is more intimate than a ruler is not an external sovereign, but the True Ruler—the true nature and governing presence within. Should we not consider for whom we ought to die? When the heart first “dies” to its attachment to material desires, the Shen can come alive.
When a spring dries up, the fish crowd together on land, moistening one another with dampness and saliva. Better for them to return to the rivers and lakes and forget one another. The commentary explains the comparison: only when fish are cut off from water are they forced to cling to one another. Who, with plenty of water around, would not simply forget the rest? The discussion that follows of right and wrong, praise and blame, makes the same point: better to forget them. This passage sets up the meaning of the two lines below about “being good to my life.”
Rather than praise Yao and condemn Jie, it is better to forget both and let them merge into the Dao. The Buddhist saying, “The Great Way is not difficult; it only fears choosing,” conveys this very idea. Praise and blame both arise from a sense of inward deficiency. One who is content lets go even of good and evil, life and death, and becomes one with transformation. How, then, could one still distinguish Yao from Jie?
The Great Clod—the cosmos and the processes of creation—gives me form to carry me, burdens me with the work of living, eases me in old age, and gives me rest in death. Thus, one who knows how to treat life well can also treat death well. Form, life, old age, and death all belong to “me”; being carried, burdened, rested, and brought to rest, however, are not up to me: creation governs them. Ordinary people merely submit to creation’s arrangements and cannot live well, so they cannot die well. For a True Person, life is not lived in vain: only a life supported by the art of nurturing life is truly lived well. Nor is death faced in vain: only a death met with peace of mind is truly a good death. When the heart dies, the Shen comes alive.
Hide a boat in a ravine and a mountain in a marsh, thinking they are secure. Yet in the middle of the night, a strongman might carry off the entire boat or mountain without anyone knowing.
Someone can run away carrying a mountain on their back, while the foolish do not know that this is possible. (As the Chongxu Jing says: “Creation and transformation shift things in secret. Who can perceive it?”) Between Heaven and Earth there is a kind of “power that has strength”: human beings. Yet how much can a person carry on their back? There is also a kind of “power that has no strength”: emptiness. It can bear mountains and rivers, and it can move them away. Who would dare say this unless their mind were attuned to creation and transformation?
“Concealment” has its proper measure, whether great or small (“concealment” is the point of emergence), and there is always somewhere to “escape to” (“escape” is the point of entry). If all under Heaven were concealed within all under Heaven itself, there would be nowhere to escape. This is the great truth that endures among the myriad things: the great conceals the small, and the small conceals the great; each thing has its proper place. Whatever is concealed must have somewhere to escape to—this is the constant principle. If all under Heaven is concealed within all under Heaven, who does the concealing? Emptiness does. The world today is still the world of old, but the people and things of today are no longer those of old. Have they not already escaped from the places where they were originally concealed? Yet people do not understand why. Such, in broad terms, is the enduring condition of the myriad things.
Once people acquire a human body, they rejoice without end. But the human form has no final state amid the myriad transformations. How many can take pleasure in this without counting? (As soon as they gain a human body, they congratulate themselves on being human, thinking only of indulging this form. It undergoes countless transformations, yet they merely calculate how to enjoy themselves and never consider how to escape the physical frame. How foolish!) That is why the sage goes wandering where the myriad things have nowhere to escape, and there both spirit and form are preserved. (The spirit is concealed within the form, with nowhere to be carried off and nowhere to flee or settle; this is called “wandering.” Since form and spirit remain together, with nowhere to escape, it is said that “both are preserved.”) From premature death to old age, from beginning to end, all is good. People still take the sage as their model; how much more so the “Great Ancestral Teacher,” the pivot on which the myriad things turn and the one on whom every transformation depends? (The sage first uses form to conceal spirit, then uses spirit to transform form, so that everything is good from premature death to old age, from beginning to end. People still emulate the sage as their teacher. The Great Ancestral Teacher is what the myriad things depend upon and what every transformation awaits. If people do not reflect on this as their destiny’s true destination, can the model they follow really be a teacher?)
The Dao has “reality” and “reliability”; it is Wuwei (non-action) and formless, and can be transmitted but not spoken. (“Reality” means what is true; “reliability” means what is efficacious.) The Great Ancestral Teacher is what the myriad things depend upon and all transformations look to. How could one fail to revere and trust in it?
The Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Scripture of Southern Florescence, Volume 28 (A Plain-Language Interpretation)
Ghosts have no fixed form, yet seem to have a “form.” They are not divine beings, yet seem to possess spirit. Ordinary people make offerings to them in temples and pour them wine; scholars use them to speak about transformation. Transformation has a “form” aspect and an “essence” aspect, and ghosts belong to the latter.
(Note: There are two explanations of essence. One says it is formed by refining the body; the other identifies it with the hun and po souls. Laozi says that the hun governs Yang and preserves essence, while the po governs Yin and the body.)
The main principles of the Dao (the Way) are these: take nature as its foundation, Wuwei (non-action) as its substance, serenity and simplicity as its function, softness and weakness as its teaching, and following what is already in motion as its practice.
Zhuangzi says: The Dao cannot be heard; if you hear it, you have not grasped its essence. It cannot be seen; if you see it, you have not seen it clearly. It cannot be spoken; if you speak of it, your words have not made it plain.
Thus the Mysterious One (also called the Great One, the True One, or the Mysterious One; the names differ, but they all refer to the same One) existed before the Wuji (Limitless) and after the Taiji (Supreme Ultimate). Formless and without image, it runs through Heaven and Earth and encompasses the myriad things.
It came into being before Heaven and Earth, yet cannot be called “early.” It is more ancient than high antiquity, yet cannot be called “old.”
Xiwei relied on it to order Heaven and Earth; Fuxi relied on it to continue the Mother of Qi. The Dipper kept its measures constant through the ages by relying on it, and the sun and moon kept their light from going out through the ages by relying on it. The Kunlun spirit Kanhuai relied on it to guard Kunlun; Fengyi relied on it to roam the great river; Shoulder-Wu, the spirit of Mount Tai, relied on it to govern Mount Tai. The Yellow Emperor relied on it to ascend Kunlun and travel south; Zhuanxu relied on it to reach the Mysterious Palace; Yu relied on it to travel through the famous mountains; Tang relied on it to bring together all goodness. Fu Yue relied on it to preside over the Fu constellation; Shennong relied on it to tend his medicinal garden for a long time; Tang Shu repeatedly received fiefs through it; Lao Dan relied on it to live long; Zhuangzi relied on it to reach Heaven; Yin Xi relied on it to awaken to the Dao through texts; Zhang Ling relied on it to develop Fulu (talismans and registers); and Wei Boyang relied on it to refine the Great Elixir.
Thus those who attain the Dao may dwell peacefully in the mountains or remain hidden at court; they may keep silent or write books; serve as teachers to emperors or friends to ordinary people; conceal themselves or rise to prominence; be poor or wealthy, suppressed or elevated, mocked or praised. They may encounter good fortune or adversity—
Their circumstances change without limit, and each finds the place that is right for them.
General Discussion (Introducing the “Cold Wind” Chapter)
The passage above, from “The Great Ancestral Teacher” through Yin Xi, Zhang Ling, and Wei Boyang, explains that each person keeps to their own Dao and accepts their own allotted life.
The discussion now turns to wind. There are many kinds of wind, and Zhuangzi uses wind to speak of the Dao: the Dao is formless, yet appears through the wind; the wind has no feelings, yet makes sounds through things.
That is why this chapter begins with the Cold Wind, then speaks of the Vast and Distant Wind, the Great Clod’s sighing breath, the claim that names and realities are not to be forced, and the lines “The Great Clod gives me a body, tires me with life, gives me ease in old age, and lets me rest in death.” These all use wind to illustrate the Dao and teach people to accept their allotted life, follow what is already in motion, and not be enslaved by things.
The Main Meaning of the Scripture
Cold Wind: The north wind of winter, which enters everywhere.
(Note: The north wind governs killing and punishment, so it is said to enter everywhere. It also represents Yin energy and the force of punishment and death.)
Vast and Distant Wind: The wind from the east, which governs growth.
(Note: Vast and Distant is the name of an eastern spirit. The wind comes from the east, where the myriad things begin to grow.)
The Great Clod breathes out, and its breath is called wind: When the earth breathes out, that breath is called wind.
(Note: The Great Clod refers to the earth. To sigh is to breathe out; wind is Qi in motion.)
Only when it does not stir is all at peace; when it stirs, the myriad openings roar: Wind brings peace only when it does not stir. Once it rises, every opening and hollow roars.
(Note: “Does not stir” means Wuwei; when it stirs, there is action, and the myriad things fall into disorder.)
Have you not seen the gentle swaying and slight fluttering?: Can you not see the branches swaying gently and the leaves stirring slightly?
(Note: The words for swaying and fluttering evoke the sounds of wind and leaves. They suggest subtle changes.)
Earth rests in its place and bears all things; Heaven marks the seasons through its signs: Earth rests steadily and carries all things, while Heaven indicates the seasons through its signs.
(Note: To rest and bear means to remain settled. Heaven’s signs are the celestial patterns by which it moves.)
The sun, moon, and stars follow Heaven in their courses: The sun, moon, and stars move in accordance with the Dao of Heaven.
(Note: To follow Heaven means to follow nature.)
I wait for it, but cannot see it; listen for it, but cannot hear it; reach out to grasp it, but cannot seize it: I wait to see it, but it remains invisible; wait to hear it, but it remains inaudible; reach out to grasp it, but cannot take hold of it.
(Note: The Dao cannot be seen, heard, or grasped.)
This too is great, but it is not enough to reach the Perfected Person: The wind, too, is great, but that is not enough to speak of the Perfected Person.
(Note: The Perfected Person is one who has attained the Dao. However great the wind may be, it is only an appearance, not the substance of the Dao.)
The Great Clod gives me a body, tires me with life, gives me ease in old age, and lets me rest in death: The earth gives me a body; life makes me weary; old age gives me ease; and death lets me rest.
(Note: Ease means repose, and rest means cessation. This teaches us to follow life and death and be at peace with our nature and life.)
Therefore, whoever treats my life well is also treating my death well: Whoever can accept my life well can also accept my death well.
(Note: Life and death are one. There is no need to cling to life or fear death.)
Suppose a great smith were smelting metal, and the metal leaped up, saying, “I must become the sword Moye!”: Imagine a great furnace smelting metal. The molten metal leaps up and says, “I must become Moye, the sharp sword!”
(Note: Moye is the name of a sword. This illustrates people clinging to fame and insisting on a particular role.)
The great smith would surely regard it as ill-omened metal: The smith would surely think the metal ill-omened.
(Note: To disregard one’s proper place and insist on having one’s own way is ill-omened.)
When a person happens to receive human form, they go about saying, “I am a human being! I am a human being!”: Once people receive human bodies, they keep proclaiming, “I am human! I am human!”
(Note: They cling to forms and names, unaware of the great Dao.)
The Great Clod would surely regard such a person as ill-omened: Heaven and Earth, too, would surely regard such a person as ill-omened.
(Note: This parallels the metaphor of the ill-omened metal.)
When someone makes even the smallest mistake, everyone wants to know exactly how they did it: If a person makes the slightest error, everyone wants to know precisely what they did to cause it.
(Note: The urge to investigate and gossip departs from nature.)
They go about entangling one another in the Dao and say, “This is what I was allotted”: Yet they jostle and entangle one another in the Dao, saying, “This is what fate assigned me.”
(Note: “Go about” means to reach or approach; to entangle one another means to become caught up together. “Fate” means what one accepts as given.)
I join them in forgetting it; I join them in transforming: I forget these things together with them, and I transform along with nature.
(Note: “Forget” means to let go; “transform” means to follow change. The Perfected Person does not cling.)
Those who are busy with human desires press one another until they cannot tolerate the slightest fault. Heaven has settled things as they are; why should Heaven be angry with them?: Those absorbed in human desires push one another until no one can tolerate even a small failing. If Heaven has settled things as they are, why should Heaven be angry with them?
(Note: One who accepts their allotted life has no resentment. Those who resent Heaven do not understand Heaven.)
Too much ease leads toward death; too much exertion leads toward life: Excessive ease tends toward death, while excessive exertion tends toward life.
(Note: Imbalance causes harm; one should remain on the middle path.)
Action and contrivance are false: What is done through deliberate contrivance is false.
(Note: “False” means unreal; what is natural is true.)
The Great Clod gives me a body, tires me with life, gives me ease in old age, and lets me rest in death: The earth bears my body, makes me weary through life, gives me ease in old age, and lets me rest in death.
(Note: This repeats the earlier point, emphasizing that nature and life are determined by Heaven.)
Therefore, whoever treats my life well is also treating my death well: One who can accept life well can also accept death well.
(Note: Same as above.)
The great smith smelting metal… the ill-omened person: The metaphor of the metal and the ill-omened person is repeated.
(Note: This warns against clinging to forms and names.)
When someone makes even the smallest mistake… I join them in transforming: The passage about entanglement, forgetting, and transforming together is repeated.
(Note: Same as above.)
Those who are busy with human desires… why should Heaven be angry with them?: The passage about resenting Heaven and accepting one’s allotted life is repeated.
(Note: Same as above.)
Too much ease leads toward death; too much exertion leads toward life; action and contrivance are false: The lines about ease, exertion, and contrived action are repeated.
(Note: Same as above.)
Additional Points from the Notes
- Cold Wind and Vast and Distant Wind: These describe more than weather. They refer to two kinds of Qi associated with Yin-Yang, killing and giving life, and nourishing growth. People should understand where these forces come from and avoid clinging to one side.
- The Great Clod’s sighing breath: Earthly Qi rises and becomes wind. This illustrates how the Dao appears through images. When the wind rises fiercely and every opening roars, it illustrates how action and contrivance create disorder.
- The Perfected Person: They are not moved by the wind or enslaved by life and death. That is why the text says, “The wind is great, but it is not enough to reach the Perfected Person.”
- Ill-omened metal and the ill-omened person: Both represent insisting on one’s own way and refusing to keep to one’s proper place. Those who cultivate the Dao should follow what is already in motion and accept their allotted life, rather than constantly insisting, “I must be human” or “I must become something particular.”
- “They go about entangling one another in the Dao and say, ‘This is what I was allotted’”: People become entangled in the Dao and cling to names. The Perfected Person, however, goes along with transformation, adding and taking away nothing.
- “Heaven has settled things as they are; why should Heaven be angry with them?”: Those who accept Heaven’s allotment have no anger or resentment. Resentment harms the person who feels it; Heaven is not the one causing the harm.
Someone used this Dao to establish himself on Mount Tai. The Yellow Emperor used it to cast the Nine Tripods; on the day they were completed, he ascended into the clouds (Xuanyuan; after the tripods were completed, he rose to Heaven). Zhuanxu used it to dwell in the Dark Palace (Gaoyang ruled as emperor; the Dark Palace refers to the northern palace, and the Monthly Ordinances name Zhuanxu as emperor and Xuanming as his spirit). Yuqiang used it to stand at the North Pole (a deity of the Northern Sea, who rode a rain dragon with his hands and feet and was served by a numinous tortoise). The Queen Mother of the West used it to sit at Shaoguang (a beautiful immortal deity of the West; the Classic of Mountains and Seas describes her as having a human face and an animal’s body, though this may not be so). No one knows its beginning; no one knows its end.
Peng Zu (surname Qian, given name Keng) used it to reach back to the time of Youyu and forward to the age of the Five Hegemons. Fu Yue used it to assist Wuding and thereby take possession of the whole world. After death, his spirit rode the Eastern Link and mounted the stars Jī and Wěi, taking its place among the constellations (Fu Yue was a worthy minister to Gaozong; the Eastern Link lies between Jī and Dǒu. After death, his spirit rode the Eastern Link and mounted Jī and Wěi to become a constellation; even now, the star Fu Yue is found above the Wěi constellation).
The commentary explains: From the Xiaowei clan onward, the thirteen statements all mean “obtained it”—whoever obtains this Dao becomes the Great Ancestor. Those who become emperors must have it in order to be emperors; the sun, moon, stars, constellations, mountains, and rivers must have it in order to be what they are; immortals, perfected beings, sages, and worthies must have it in order to become such.
Nanbo Zikui asked Nüyu (pronounced “Yu”): “You are already old, yet your complexion is like a child’s. How is this?”
Nüyu replied: “I have heard the Dao.”
Nanbo Zikui asked: “Can the Dao be learned?”
She answered: “No, no—you are not the right person for it.” Buliang Yi (pronounced “Qi”) had the capacity of a sage but not the Dao of a sage (a sage here means an immortal; “capacity” refers to resources and foundation, while “Dao” means the method of becoming immortal. A wealthy person who seeks long life has the resources of a sage but does not know the method of longevity, and so lacks the Dao of a sage). I had the Dao of a sage but not the capacity of a sage. I wanted to teach him, hoping that he might truly become a sage (obtaining the medicine and the Elixir requires resources. Nüyu knew there was a Dao but lacked the resources; poor, she had heard of the Dao but had not yet secured outside support. So she hoped to find Buliang Yi and teach him, allowing them both to enter sagehood). Otherwise…
This passage comes from the Annotations and Subcommentary to the True Classic of Southern Florescence. It describes the stages and states of realization through which Nü Yu—whom the commentator calls a person of high attainment in the Dao—teaches Bu Liangyi the Way of the sage. It also includes explanations of particular words and phrases.
The Way of the sage is easy to teach to someone with the capacity for sagehood. Bu Liangyi was born with the aptitude to study the Dao, as though he already had the capital and tools in hand; he could be called someone with the capacity to become a sage. Without this natural endowment, even if I possessed the Dao, it would be difficult for the other person truly to enter sagehood. What has already been attained is the Dao; what has yet to be attained and must be conveyed through teaching is the method—the teaching and the path of practice. When I take the Way of the sage and teach someone who already has the capacity for sagehood, both the method and the “resources” of natural endowment are brought into play. Together they enable entry into sagehood with ease.
Even so, I must wait for the right moment and tell him gradually. Bu Liangyi has the necessary capacity but has not yet attained the Dao, so I must first wait for the right time before transmitting the Way of the sage to him.
After three days, he can “leave the world behind”—setting aside and forgetting fame, rank, and wealth.
After another seven days, he can “leave things behind”—forgetting social ties and entanglements with external things.
After another nine days, he can “leave life behind”—letting go even of attachment to his own life.
Three, seven, and nine are numbers associated with Heaven. Heaven signifies the vast emptiness to which nothing clings. Thus the text says that after keeping watch for three, seven, and nine days, one can leave the world, things, and life behind. The world is most remote, things are closer, and life is closest of all; so leaving the world behind is easy, leaving things behind is harder, and leaving life behind is harder still. This cannot be accomplished without the attainment of a great ancestral master.
Only after leaving life behind can one “reach the clarity of dawn”—a sudden, lucid awakening, like the world opening into clarity at daybreak.
Only after reaching the clarity of dawn can one “see what stands alone.” The truth of leaving life behind can be realized only by oneself; it cannot be seen together with another. Hence the phrase “see what stands alone.”
Only after seeing what stands alone can one be “free of past and present.” Long and short spans of time become like dawn and dusk, and one no longer clings to them.
Only after being free of past and present can one enter the state of “neither dying nor being born.” A text on alchemy says that to seek long life and escape death, one must refine one’s nature until one is like a “living corpse.” Shi Xinglin says that the birth of all things is death, while the death of the original spirit is its return to life; when Shen resides within Qi, the Way of the Elixir naturally comes to completion. Buddhist teachings likewise say: neither eternal nor annihilated, neither born nor extinguished; birth has never truly been birth, and extinction has never truly been extinction. All of these speak of this same level.
“One who kills life does not die; one who gives life to life is not born.” In dealing with all things, this state sends everything on its way and welcomes everything; it destroys everything and brings everything to completion. This state is called yingning—remaining at peace amid disturbance.
“Yingning” means keeping one’s inner peace even amid turmoil.
Plain-Language Interpretation of the Annotations and Commentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence
Annotations on “Disturbed Yet at Peace”
“What is achieved afterward”
A classic on alchemy says: “When the mind dies, the spirit truly comes alive; when the Po-soul is extinguished, the Hun-soul flourishes.” Those who single-mindedly pursue life nourish only the body, not the spirit, and so cannot attain true life. Those who single-mindedly fear death nourish only the spirit, not the body, and so cannot enter the gate to deathlessness. Their hearts remain anxious, busy welcoming and resisting, choosing and rejecting. The heart never finds peace, and this is already a great hardship.
Only those who extinguish the mind that clings to life and death need not deliberately welcome or resist, yet nothing lies outside what they welcome or resist. They need not cling to making or destroying, yet nothing lies outside what is made or destroyed. They have entered a state of Great Stability. Without stability, one’s name cannot be settled; the settled name is Disturbed Yet at Peace: first stirred and tempered by worldly affairs, and only afterward brought to completion. Gold must be refined to become pure; jade must be polished to shine.
The whole life’s practice of Zhuangzi and Laozi rests on these two words, Disturbed Yet at Peace. The point at which a person’s learning bears fruit also lies in working these words through completely; then truth comes naturally. The Buddhist idea of “dwelling amid dust while emerging from dust” broadly has its roots here.
Nanbo Zikui’s Inquiry: A Lineage of “Hearing the Dao”
Nanbo Zikui asked, “From whom did you hear these things?”
The answer proceeds through a lineage: Son of Assistant Ink → Grandson of Recited Verses (one who recites the classics) → Clear Vision (the eyes can see and the heart can understand) → Gathering and Assenting (the eyes gather in what they see and the heart assents) → Requiring and Serving → Singing (chanting) → Dark Mystery (the beginning of Qi) → Empty Vastness (the beginning of the nameless) → Doubtful Beginning (the beginning before beginnings).
Earlier, the text moves from “going beyond the world” to “seeing the Unique.” Its inquiry grows ever more refined, proceeding from the worldly toward the transcendent. Here, the movement from the language of Assistant Ink back to Empty Vastness and Doubtful Beginning is a search through words for the nature of Heaven, then for the origin of that nature, and finally for what has no beginning. The further the search goes, the more mysterious it becomes. This is precisely what is meant by “mystery upon mystery,” and it may be said to grasp the spirit of Laozi’s Dao De Jing.
The Four Friends Discuss the Dao: Taking Life and Death as One
Zisi, Ziyu, Zili, and Zilai were together and said:
“Who can take nonbeing as the head, life as the spine, and death as the tail—seeing nonbeing, life, and death as one continuous whole? Who can know that death, life, existence, and disappearance are all one body? We will make that person our friend.”
The parable that follows explains the meaning of life and death undergoing no change and being one without distinction. The head, spine, and tail are simply one line from beginning to end. All things begin in nonbeing and end in nonbeing; arising and passing away are no more than a single thought arising and ceasing, or Qi coming and going. Those who enter the state of “neither dying nor being born” become friends with such a person.
A Plain-Language Interpretation of the Annotations and Commentary on the Nanhua Zhenjing
(Continuing from the previous passage) Is what a person possesses really limited to a body seven feet tall?
The four men looked at one another and laughed. Their minds were completely in accord—“nothing contrary” means that they did not oppose one another—and so they became friends.
Not long afterward, Ziyu fell ill, and Zisi went to visit him. Ziyu said, “How great the Creator is! It is turning me into this contorted shape”—his back bent, a boil growing on it with what looked like five holes; his chin drawn down to his navel, his shoulders higher than his head, his hair knot pointing skyward, and a lump of flesh pointing at the sky. This was caused by disharmony in the Qi of Yin and Yang. Yet his mind was calm, as if nothing were wrong. Though his feet were twisted and he could not walk, he looked at his reflection in a well and sighed, “Ah! The Creator is turning me into this contorted shape again!”
Zisi asked, “Do you hate being like this?” Ziyu replied, “No. What is there to hate? If it gradually turned my left arm into a rooster, I would use it to announce the dawn. If it turned my right arm into a crossbow pellet, I would use it to shoot an owl and roast it for meat. If it turned my buttocks into wheels and my spirit into a horse, I would ride along on them. Why would I need another cart?” The commentary explains that here he does not speak abstractly about transformation by treating it as something external; instead, he entrusts his body to transformation, follows things as they are, and forms neither aversion nor attachment. The three imagined transformations are depicted so vividly that even the desire to cling to life begins to fade.
Besides, life comes when its time arrives, and death is followed in accordance with nature. Be at ease with the time and accept what follows, and grief and joy cannot enter the heart. That is, one neither detests death nor delights in life. The ancients called this “being released from suspension”: not being bound by life and death. Those who cannot free themselves are entangled by external things. As Guo Xiang says, when one person cannot free himself, all things bind him together; to have no way of release and yet be bound by nothing—that is true release. Things have never overcome Heaven; this has been so from long ago. Why, then, should I detest it? Why fear death and cling to life?
Not long afterward, Zilai fell ill. He was gasping for breath and near death, while his wife and children gathered around him in tears. This passage again explains why one should be at ease with the time and accept one’s lot.
Plain-language interpretation
Zili went to visit the man. He asked the man’s wife and children to step outside and told them not to weep loudly, so they would not disturb someone on the verge of transformation. Leaning against the door, he spoke to him: “How great is the transforming power of Nature! What will it turn you into next? Where will it send you? Will you become a rat’s liver or a worm’s foreleg?” (Rat’s liver and worm’s foreleg are metaphors for becoming something exceedingly lowly and insignificant.)
The man said: “Children obey their parents in all things, whether east, west, north, or south. Yin-Yang and the transformations of Nature are even closer to us than our parents. If they command me to die quickly and I refuse, I would be defying them. What fault is there in death itself? The Great Clod—Heaven and Earth, or Nature—gave me my form. It toils me in life, gives me rest in old age, and lets me rest in death. So whoever treats my life kindly also treats my death kindly.” (This point was explained earlier.)
“Now, if a great smith were smelting metal and the metal leapt up, saying, ‘I insist on being made into a Moye sword!’ the smith would surely regard it as ill-omened metal. If, while being cast into human form, someone cried, ‘A person! A person!’ the Creator would surely regard that as an ill-omened person. With Heaven and Earth as the great furnace and Nature’s transformations as the great smith, where could I go and not find a place? Let me regard death as settling into peaceful sleep, and life as suddenly waking. When a smith casts metal, only the smith knows what he is making. How could this piece of metal know whether it had already been cast and hammered in a thousand furnaces in the past? The comparison between metal and a person, and between the great smith and Nature’s transformations, is apt: no metal refuses to obey the smith, and no person refuses to obey the Spirit Who Governs Life. The spirit in Heaven and Earth is finite. Thus, when the spirit of someone who has died returns as a person, it does not know what sort of person it was before—just as, when the great smith puts old metal into a new furnace, its present form does not know what shape it had when it was cast before. The Buddhist teaching of rebirth is in fact rooted in this principle of the furnace and the smith. Those who cultivate the Dao should understand it.”
Zisang Hu, Meng Zifan, and Ziqin Zhang became friends and said, “Who can…” (The original text continues from here; this passage ends mid-sentence.)
The three interacted with one another without any intention of interacting, and helped one another without any thought of helping. Who can ascend to the heavens and wander through the mists, free beyond the myriad things?
Their play and banter had no end. They forgot themselves in life, taking no joy in being alive, and knew no limit, fearing no death. The three looked at one another and laughed, their hearts in perfect accord, and so they became friends.
Before long, Zisang Hu died. He had not yet been buried when Confucius heard the news and sent Zigong to help arrange the funeral. One person was weaving a straw mat; another was playing a zither. They sang in harmony: “Ah, Zisang Hu! Ah, Zisang Hu! You have returned to your true nature, while we are still here, playing at being human!” (“Yi” is an exclamation.)
Zigong hurried forward and asked, “May I ask whether it accords with ritual to sing in the presence of a corpse?” The two looked at one another and laughed. “How could you understand the true meaning of ritual?” (Ritual’s original purpose is to return to the source: one simply remains true to oneself and does not forget one’s beginning. This is what it means for those closest to one another to dispense with empty formalities. In later ages, empty formalities flourished, and ritual’s true meaning was lost.)
Zigong returned and told Confucius. Confucius said, “Who are these people? They cultivate Wuwei (non-action) and regard their bodies as nothing; they sing in the presence of a corpse without a change in expression. There are no words that can describe them. Who are these people?”
Confucius continued, “They wander beyond the bounds of the world, following a way of transcendence; I wander within those bounds, following a way of living in the world. What lies beyond and within the bounds has nothing to do with the other; each follows its own path. Yet I sent you to offer condolences. How shallow I am! They keep company with the Creator and wander amid the single Qi from which Heaven and Earth arise. They regard life as an excrescence, a hanging wart, and death as the bursting of an abscess and the removal of a wart. How could people like this know where the beginning and end of life and death lie?”
“Taking different substances—Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind—as their dwelling within a single body, they forget their liver and gallbladder and cast aside their ears and eyes, placing themselves outside their own bodies. They move back and forth between beginning and end, unaware of where either starts. Lost and wandering beyond the dusty world, they roam freely in the work of Wuwei. How could they fret over worldly affairs in such confusion?”
Can the rites of the world really be meant as a performance for people’s eyes and ears? (Lu Xixing says: To take external things as one’s form and rely on what shares one’s substance for its function is to be a phantom body formed from the false union of the Four Great Elements—earth, fire, water, and wind—as the Scripture of Perfect Awakening says. When the body dies, bones, hair, teeth, and nails return to earth; essence, fluids, and blood return to water; warmth returns to fire; and movement returns to wind. Where, then, is this phantom body now? One forgets the liver and gallbladder, leaves behind the eyes and ears, and cycles through beginning and end without knowing their thread. One wanders in bewilderment beyond the dust and grime, unaware of what the self or its life in the world might be; one roams freely in the Dao of Wuwei, letting coming and going follow their own course. How, then, could one hurry to use worldly rites as a display for people’s eyes and ears?)
Zigong said, “Then, Master, which side do you follow?” Confucius said, “Qiu is one whom Heaven has punished and cast aside”—that is, the meaning of “the Emperor hangs suspended, unresolved.” “Even so, I travel among it with you.” Zigong said, “May I ask about the Dao within it?” Confucius said, “Fish are born together in water”—here, “make” means “give birth”—“and people are born together in the Dao. Those born together in water can be sustained by digging a pond; it does not matter how much water they have. Those born together in the Dao settle their minds without doing anything, acting according to their share and finding ease in it. Thus it is said: fish forget one another in rivers and lakes; people forget one another in the arts of the Dao”—the Perfected Person is always content with himself, and so can always forget. Zigong said, “May I ask about the unusual person?” “Unusual” is pronounced as qi and means someone unlike other people. Zigong’s question implies that this person walks alone, so he asks about the unusual person. Confucius said, “The unusual person differs from ordinary people yet accords with nature. Thus one is a petty person by Heaven’s standards and a gentleman by human standards; a gentleman by human standards is a petty person by Heaven’s standards.” Those who polish themselves until they lose their spirit are mostly people of wealth and rank: Heaven regards them as petty, while people call them gentlemen. Those who cultivate only the body and do not understand nature and life are gentlemen among people, yet Heaven must despise them as petty.
Yan Hui asked Zhongni, “Mengsun Cai’s mother died, yet he wept without tears, felt no grief in his heart, and showed no sorrow during the mourning period. Though he lacked all three, he became famous for handling the funeral well. Could there really be someone in Lu who has the name without the substance? Yan Hui found this strange.” Zhongni said, “The Mengsun family has reached the limit. They have gone beyond what is commonly called ‘knowledge.’ They only strive for simplicity and fail to attain it; in truth, they have already made themselves simple.” In the matter of weeping, he had already become attached to the idea of “not” doing so.
Within a state of “not deliberately choosing,” one has already made a choice.
(Guo Xiang’s commentary: To enter a state of “not deliberately choosing” is, in fact, already to be choosing.)
Mengsun Cai did not know how people are born or how they die. He did not know why one should “move toward life” or “retreat toward death.”
(Commentary: Since he did not understand life, he made no deliberate effort to “move toward life”; since he did not understand death, he made no deliberate effort to “move toward death.”)
Perhaps he simply let himself transform into things, awaiting the transformations he did not know were coming.
(Guo Xiang: The flow of life and death is one with transformation. When even what is known in the present has been forgotten, why worry in advance about changes yet to come?)
And when something is about to change, how can we know it will not change? When something is about not changing, how can we know it has already changed?
(Commentary: We are born only after we have changed, so how can we know what came before birth? We die before we have changed, so how can we know what comes after death? There is no need to avoid or pursue either state; simply live along with transformation.)
Am I and you perhaps both dreamers who have not yet awakened?
(Transformation and its absence are like dreaming and waking: there can be “waking” within a dream, and there may still be dreaming while awake.)
He had a human body, yet his heart was unharmed. He had a dwelling that followed the alternation of day and night, yet he died without human attachments.
(He had a body because he had human form; his heart did not stir, so it suffered no harm. Life and death were like day and night, hence the phrase “a dwelling at dawn.” He had no human attachments, hence “dying without feeling.”)
Mengsun Cai simply understood this: when others wept for him, he wept too. That was “because of what made it so.”
(He wept when others wept, but the tears did not come from within him. This is what is meant by an unharmed heart and dying without feeling. The phrase “because of what made it so” is especially apt: it means “that is why it happened.”)
And besides, what they and I share is simply being “I.” How can we know that what I call “I” is the same as what they call “I”?
(What they and I share is the transformation of life and death. Since what they call “I” is already theirs, how can we know that what I call “I” is likewise the same?)
You dream of being a bird soaring into the sky, or a fish plunging into the depths. How do you know whether the one speaking now is awake or dreaming?
(You dream that you are a bird flying into the sky, or a fish sinking into the depths. How do you know whether you, speaking now, are awake or dreaming?)
When joy arrives, there is no time to laugh; when laughter comes, there is no time to arrange it.
(When delight comes naturally, there is no time to laugh; when laughter arises unexpectedly, there is no time to plan it.)
Let go even of deliberate arrangement and go along with transformation; then one enters the Vast Heaven, the One.
(When even “arrangement” is set aside and one follows nature completely, a human being becomes Heaven itself. The Vast Heaven, the One means nonduality, the Supreme Ultimate, the Great Master, and the Golden Elixir.)
Yi’erzi visited Xu You, who asked him, “What did Yao teach you?”
“Yierzi said, ‘Yao told me that I must personally put benevolence and righteousness into practice, and speak plainly about right and wrong.’
“Xu You said, ‘Then why have you come here? (“Zhi” is a particle.) Yao has tattooed the words “benevolence and righteousness” on your face and cut off your nose with his distinctions between right and wrong. (To damage the Daoist integrity of things in the name of benevolence and righteousness is like destroying primordial unity through tattooing; to shatter that unity with judgments of right and wrong is like cutting off the nose by punishment.) How can you still hope to wander freely and without restraint?’
“Yierzi said, ‘Even so, I still want to reach the edge of that realm.’ (“Fān” means a fence or boundary.)
“Xu You said, ‘No. A blind person cannot appreciate the beauty of a face and its features; someone whose eyes cannot see cannot appreciate the beauty of colored brocade. (One is called blind when there are no pupils; one is called sightless when the eyes are present but cannot see. The point is that you lack the natural aptitude to hear the Dao.)’
“Yierzi said, ‘The beauty of Wuzhuang faded; the warrior Jùliáng lost his strength; the Yellow Emperor lost his wisdom. All of them were shaped and tempered in the crucible. (Before entering the furnace and hammer, the three still bore their reputations for beauty, strength, and wisdom. Once inside, the beauty lost her beauty, the strong man his strength, and the wise man his wisdom. Such is the power of the furnace and hammer! The point is that you can transform people through the Dao, helping each person shed old habits and awaken to themselves; all are shaped and tempered by you, Master.)’
“Xu You said, ‘How do you know the Creator will not cease tattooing and cutting me, restore my nose, and let me follow you as I come to maturity? (My former tattooing and nose-cutting wounded my nature; they were not natural. Now that I have realized my original nature in the crucible, how can I know the Creator will not remove what was carved into me and restore me to what I was?)’
“Xu You said, ‘Ah, it is hard to say. Let me give you a general account: My teacher, my teacher! (Xu You now describes his teacher’s virtue.) He treats the myriad things as if they were chaff, yet does not consider himself righteous; his grace reaches across ten thousand generations, yet he does not consider himself benevolent; he is older than antiquity, yet does not consider himself old. He covers and sustains Heaven and Earth, shaping the myriad forms, yet does not consider himself skillful. This is the realm in which he wanders. (He wanders in Wuwei, taking “nothingness” as his teacher.)’”
Yan Hui and “Sitting in Forgetfulness”
Yan Hui said, “I have made progress.” Confucius asked, “What do you mean?” Yan Hui replied, “I have forgotten benevolence and righteousness.” Confucius said, “That will do, but it is not enough.”
A few days later, they met again. Yan Hui said, “I have made further progress.” Confucius asked, “What do you mean?” Yan Hui replied, “I have forgotten ritual and music.” Confucius said, “That will do, but it is not enough.”
A few more days later, they met again. Yan Hui said, “I have made further progress.” Confucius asked, “What do you mean?” Yan Hui replied, “I am sitting in forgetfulness.” Confucius exclaimed in surprise, “What does sitting in forgetfulness mean?”
Yan Hui said, “I forget my limbs and body, shut off the acuity of my ears and eyes, leave behind my physical form, cast aside my knowledge, and unite with the Great Way (Great Pervasion). This is called sitting in forgetfulness.”
Confucius said, “One who is at one with the Dao has no partiality; one who changes along with transformation does not cling to a fixed form. You truly are a worthy and enlightened person! I, Qiu, would like to follow behind you and learn.”
A commentary cites Chen Xiangdao’s explanation: “The Dao is like the ocean; benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and music are like rivers that flow into it. Once Yan Hui attained the Dao, he forgot benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and music: he saw the ocean and forgot the many rivers. Yet the thought of the Dao still remained in his mind. Once he left behind his physical form, forgot things, abandoned knowledge, and forgot the mind, resting with nothing to bind him, where could the Dao take its stand? He and I simply forget everything together. Yan Hui’s ‘forgetting’ brings an increase through what is not forgotten, and also involves what is called loss: he does not forget what ought to be forgotten, but returns to sincerity. Forgetting again and again, losing more and more, until there is nothing left to lose—one cannot reach this without attaining the subtlety of sitting in forgetfulness.”
Ziyu and Zisang
Ziyu and Zisang were friends. After ten days of continuous rain, Ziyu thought Zisang must be ill, so he carried some food over to him. At Zisang’s door, he heard him singing and weeping as he plucked a zither and recited, “Was it my father? Was it my mother? Was it Heaven? Was it a person?” He could not keep the song going, and hurriedly mumbled the words to the end. (The singing was out of tune, and he spoke the words in a rush.) Ziyu went in and asked, “Why are you singing poetry like this?”
Zisang said, “I was trying to work out who had brought me to this state, but I cannot think of anyone to blame. Would my parents want me to be poor? Heaven shelters all things without favoring any, and Earth bears all things without favoring any. Would Heaven and Earth deliberately make me poor? I search for whoever caused this, but I cannot find one. Yet I have fallen into such a desperate state. It is fate.”
The commentary also offers an interpretation as an allegory of Neidan (internal alchemy): “The Daoist school reverses Kan and Li: water rises from below to become fire, and when water and fire join in harmony, Heaven and Earth cannot make me poor, so there is no illness. But now, after ten days of rain, water descends from above to become fire, and water and fire fail to join in harmony. As Mencius said, ‘The words are close at hand, but their meaning reaches far.’ Each line can be read in another way, as an image of cultivation; this is not merely a story about poverty and illness.”
“Ten” is the number of Earth. From this we can see that the human body is inherently inclined toward Yin—how could it not fall ill? Since Heaven and Earth are humanity’s great parents, which ultimately prevails: Heaven or humanity? To believe only that “Heaven is destined to prevail over humanity” is the view of ordinary people. To know that “humanity, in turn, can prevail over Heaven” is the way of the immortals and Buddhas. Heaven and Earth shelter and sustain all things without bias. How could they deliberately make people poor? The passage hints that poverty is often something people bring upon themselves, and urges them to seek within the body the place where inexhaustible abundance already exists. The head corresponds to Qian, Heaven; the abdomen to Kun, Earth. Ordinary people do not know how to set the “killing trigger” in motion or turn Heaven and Earth upside down, and so they fall into “Obstruction between Heaven and Earth.” Their spirit is depleted and their poverty reaches its limit. Even if they then appeal to the Director of Destiny, who governs the length of life, they cannot discover who brought them to this state. That is why one must undertake work grounded in De and deliberate action; one cannot simply do nothing, as in the case of the prince who sought the immortals. Yet when poverty reaches its limit, one must also understand that when things reach an extreme, they must reverse. By observing the Dao of Heaven and carrying out its workings, one’s destiny begins to rest in oneself rather than in Heaven. The mysterious school overturns Heaven and Earth, bringing about “Peace between Earth and Heaven.” Heaven can no longer send down calamity, Earth can no longer make people poor, and the Director of Destiny can no longer restrain them. This is what it means to be a Great Ancestral Master—why should people not take such a one as their ancestral master?
Zigui Zi says:
Anyone who studies the Dao needs understanding to enter the Dao, yet must be free of understanding to attain it. The Dao’s great foundation lies in Heaven; Heaven is one’s nature, and it allows no improper interference by human effort. With understanding, one can act through human effort and preserve one’s nature completely. Without understanding, one cannot force attainment through human effort, but can nourish one’s nature. “Do not forget, and do not help it along”—this is what that means. Therefore, one must first become a True Person; only then can one have true understanding. The True People of antiquity did not deceive widows or orphans, nor did they fear the powerful and violent. They did not transmit the Dao to those unfit to receive it; if they failed to find a suitable recipient, they felt no regret, even if the opportunity passed. And when they did find one, they did not keep what they had received for themselves. People saw them climb to great heights without fear, or enter water and fire without feeling cold or heat, yet did not realize that their perfection in true understanding had already carried them beyond the four great elements—Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind—that falsely combine to form the body. To say that they “slept without dreams, awoke without worries, and ate without savoring” describes only minor things. The True Person’s practice lies entirely in the two words heel breathing: their breath runs deep, rising directly from the Yongquan point at the sole of the foot. This differs from ordinary people, whose breath stays in the throat, whose desires run deep, and whose innate workings are shallow. Birth is the coming forth of creation and transformation; its working begins here, so there is no need to know its joy. Death is the return into creation and transformation; its working ends here, so there is no need to fear its aversion.
A Plain-Language Interpretation of the Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence
Those who do not understand such inner changes of cold and heat as “evil does not arise from one’s true nature” cannot accord with the turning of the four seasons and the ten thousand things.
If this is so, then when someone kills a person and the person feels no resentment, or gives life to a person and the person feels no gratitude, the reason must be different from what we see among foxes and their kind. Those sages merely accommodate what pleases others, without seeking to please themselves; that is another matter altogether. I see that they neither compare themselves with others nor submit to them, neither cling rigidly to things nor put on airs. They seem delighted, almost as if leaping; seem exposed, yet remain obscure. Outwardly they feign a stern lack of constraint, while inwardly they keep their own measure. They examine themselves by touching the tongue, raise an edge without a blade, and beat wings without feathers. They follow the seasons of Heaven and the De of humanity, holding only to this “One.” They may also use “One” and “not-One” together: they cherish Shen more than the body, and are more concerned with the ruler’s death than with their own.
Yao and Jie are no longer distinguished; praise and blame are both forgotten. The way of living well becomes the way of dying well. A boat may be hidden in a ravine, a mountain in a marsh, and the whole world in the world, yet each still has somewhere it might escape to. But when Shen is housed within the body, there is nowhere to bear it away and nowhere for it to go. Who can keep body and Shen together and make them last forever? Only those who rely on the Dao that is its own source and root: ghosts and spirits cannot help but be numinous, Heaven and Earth cannot help but give birth, nothing can equal the Dao in depth or duration, nothing can surpass it in age. The sovereign cannot help but be sovereign; the sun, moon, stars, mountains, and rivers cannot help but be what they are; immortals, perfected beings, sages, and worthies cannot help but be what they are.
Bu Liangyi had the talent of a sage, and talent and wealth are connected: with wealth but no method, how could one attain the Dao? Nü Xie had the Dao of a sage, while Gaozi had the wealth of a sage; for them, attaining the Dao was easier. Three, seven, and nine are all yang numbers. After three days, one transcends the world and sets one’s heart on leaving it; after seven days, one transcends things and is free of the appearance of other people; after nine days, one transcends life and is free of the appearance of a self. Gradually transcending more and more, one suddenly awakens in a single morning: only I see, while others do not. One sees ancient and present times as morning and evening, and death and life as a fleeting instant. Thus one can enter the state of neither dying nor being born—the very aim of Chan Buddhism. Lü Zu said, “When a person can end their own life and kill what is ‘alive but not yet dead,’ learning death leads to long life.” Is this what is meant by “the killer of life does not die; the giver of life does not live”?
If there is welcoming and sending forth, or arising and ruin, then there is “peace” and “unrest.” If there is no welcoming and sending forth, no arising and ruin, then there is neither peace nor unrest; hence it is called “restlessness in peace.” One refines Qi in stillness and Shen in leisure—how could there be anything but peace? So it is with “restlessness in peace” as well.
This commentary brings Daoist alchemical texts, Chan Buddhist language, and stories from the Zhuangzi to bear on one another to explain “forgetting life and death, forgetting the body, and taking the Dao as one’s home.” The interpretation is divided into sections below.
First section: Alchemical texts and “the beginning in doubt”
The state described as “neither death nor birth” is also recorded in texts such as the Deputy Ink Alchemical Scripture. Only after reciting the Luo can one see through to the truth; only after Nie and Xu, the ancient immortals, is the work brought to completion. Songs and writings are merely outward forms. The true substance is the nature of Heaven and the root of the Dao.
“Dark obscurity” is the beginning of Qi and the first emergence of form. “Vast emptiness” is the beginning of the nameless and the first emergence of nature—yet both still involve some degree of “being.” As for “hearing of the beginning in doubt,” that is the beginning of nonbeing: even “being” is forgotten. Chan Master Muzheng said, “When deluded, one needs the teachings of the Three Vehicles; after awakening, one realizes there is not even a single word.” This is what the passage means.
Second section: Zisi, Ziyu, Zili, and Zilai
The four men, beginning with Zisi, placed Wuwei (non-action) first. At first, they regarded “life” as the middle of the back and “death” as the end of the buttocks. They would turn a left arm into a rooster for night calls, a right arm into owl meat, the buttocks into a wheel, and the spirit into a horse. At ease with the times and following change, they let themselves be suspended and then come apart of their own accord. Who would dare contend with the Creator?
Suddenly someone arrived, weeping over Zilai, who was near death. The dying man understood that Yin and Yang shape and transform the myriad things: a rat’s liver or an insect’s leg comes into being through change, and one goes east or west, north or south, wherever fate leads. People do not dare defy their parents; how could they dare defy Yin and Yang? When gold leaps in the furnace, that is the smelter’s work; when a person takes shape in a mold, that is the artisan’s work. Yet people do not understand this.
One who recognizes Heaven and Earth’s transformations as a great furnace and forge can surely see through the great dream of life and death.
Third section: Sanghu and the view of life and death
Sanghu and his two companions befriended one another through mindlessness and Wuwei. They saw death as a return to the real and made a ritual of singing over the corpse. They wandered beyond the bounds of the world, beyond the reach of the human relationships practiced within it.
If life is an extra growth, like a skin tag or a hanging wart, then life too is a burden. If death is the lancing of a boil and the draining of an abscess, then death need not be a hardship.
“Such a person” sees the body as a temporary joining of things. The liver, gallbladder, ears, and eyes are not truly his own; how, then, could he cling to what the world calls “possession”?
Fourth section: Zigong, the unusual person, and the exemplary person
Zigong asked the Master what he relied upon. He did not understand that a fish in water forgets the water, just as a person in the Dao forgets the Dao.
The unusual person comes first in the world; only afterward comes the person who matches Heaven. The “petty person of Heaven” comes first; only afterward comes the “exemplary person among humans.”
Fifth section: Yan Hui and Mengsun Cai
Yan Hui was puzzled that Mengsun Cai showed no grief while mourning. He did not realize that Mengsun regarded loud weeping as needless fuss and wished to respond with simplicity and calm. Life and death are successive stages; transformation and non-transformation follow an inevitable principle. The body may be damaged, but the mind cannot; the physical form may remain alive, while the emotions must already have died.
Thus the dreams of fish and birds, soaring into the sky and sinking beneath the waters, all come together through this one realization.
Notes for reading the original
- Deputy Ink Alchemical Scripture and the Luo recitation: Terms from Daoist cultivation and scripture-recitation traditions. Here they refer to using alchemical texts to support the teaching of “neither death nor birth.”
- Dark obscurity, vast emptiness, and the beginning in doubt: A progression through being and nonbeing that ends by forgetting even “being,” approaching the Zhuangzi’s reflections on “the beginning in doubt” and “nonbeing of nonbeing.”
- The four men beginning with Zisi, and Sanghu: Both episodes come from the Zhuangzi, “The Great Ancestral Teacher.” They concern accepting death, delighting in life, and transcending ritual and the physical form.
- The unusual person and the one who matches Heaven: A person who does not fit conventional norms yet shares in Heaven’s De.
- Mengsun Cai: A mourner in a Zhuangzi parable who regards life as an appendage and death as release, contrasting with the grief Yan Hui expects to see.
Annotations and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence (Nanhua Zhenjing Zhushu) · Inner Chapter, “Responding as an Emperor and King,” Chapter Seven
At the deepest level, one cannot see how “feelings” shift and respond. It is like arriving at the place one must go: there is no time to laugh, and others do not know why you feel at ease.
There is no time to laugh away one’s distress, and others do not know why one laughs. Whatever falls on the human side is contrived by people; once contrivance is removed, what is natural comes to light. Thus the spirit wanders in the vast unity of the open sky—that is the doubtful beginning, the Great Ancestral Master. Only after losing the Dao and De did benevolence arise; only after losing benevolence did righteousness arise. Benevolence and righteousness, then, are not innate. Hence the saying: “Use benevolence and righteousness to tattoo your face.” With benevolence and righteousness come right and wrong, and right and wrong are names imposed by force. Hence the saying: “Use right and wrong to cut off your nose.” Only after the furnace and hammer have worked upon them can the body, one’s disposition, and one’s knowledge be transformed into nothingness. The highest righteousness does not look like righteousness; the highest benevolence does not look like benevolence; the greatest elder does not look old; the utmost skill does not look skillful. You and I are simply wandering in spirit.
It is precisely because benevolence and righteousness tattoo the face that one turns back and says: “Forget benevolence and righteousness, and the tattoo marks will fade.” It is precisely because right and wrong cut off the nose that one turns back and says: “Forget ritual and music, and the severed nose will be restored.” Then comes sitting in forgetfulness: let the limbs fall away and dismiss the senses and understanding. This is like the Yijing saying, “Keep the back still and do not apprehend the body”—leave form and knowledge behind and become one with the Great Opening. It is like saying, “Walk through the courtyard without seeing anyone there.”
When Zisang fell ill after being soaked by rain, Ziyu went to visit him with a bundle of food. His Qi was swollen and full; he did not want to eat, yet he ate—unlike someone taking an elixir. The text raises the examples of Heaven’s sheltering all things without partiality and Earth’s bearing all things without partiality. These differ from the sage who sets his person aside and thereby preserves it, and who, because he is impartial, can fulfill his own interests. It also raises the example of reaching this extreme as one’s fate. This differs from those who claim to hold Heaven and Earth in their hands and swallow the sun and moon. The Great Ancestral Master is the human primal spirit. Everyone has it, yet no one knows the Ancestral Master. Thus the immortal masters point it out to people in many different ways.
“Responding as an Emperor and King,” Chapter Seven (Explanatory Note)
An emperor or king governs people and must also win their allegiance. Yet this must arise from what is “beyond the human”—like the Pot Master, who reads people without limit. Only then can one preserve one’s undifferentiated state and become an emperor or king, in accord with the Way of responding.
Nie Que asked Wang Ni four questions, and four times Wang Ni answered, “I don’t know.” (Here, “knowing” means human knowledge and distinctions, which bore into primordial undifferentiation and disperse original simplicity; Wang Ni therefore answered each time that he did not know.) Nie Que was delighted, leaping for joy. (This “not knowing” is what the Great Dao forbids; he was happy because his lack of knowledge had brought him to realization.) He went and told Puyi Zi.
Puyizi (the teacher of Beiyi Wangni) said: "Have you realized it now? Emperor Shun of the Yu clan could not compare to the ancient Emperor Tai. Shun used benevolence and virtue (De) to win over people's hearts. Though he gained popular support, he never transcended the realm of human artifice (failing to reach the natural state of Wuwei). Emperor Tai was completely different—when sleeping he was tranquil and relaxed, when awake he was leisurely and content. If people called him a horse, he responded as a horse; if called an ox, he responded as an ox (illustrating complete accordance with nature, beyond distinctions of right and wrong, like Laozi's teaching 'respond as horse when called horse, as ox when called ox'). His wisdom was genuinely trustworthy, his virtue (De) utterly pure and spontaneous, never entangled in artificial constructs (while ordinary people mix artifice with nature, Tai maintained his original authenticity)."
Tang Dynasty scholar Jingchuan explained: Emperor Shun still harbored intentions of deliberate action, remaining at the human level rather than the heavenly Dao. Emperor Tai, however, was in perfect harmony with the Dao's natural flow. Song Dynasty commentator Chu Boxiu added: True wisdom is knowing nothing yet understanding everything. The way of enlightened rulers lies in forgetting their own wisdom—letting the sharp-eared handle listening, the clear-eyed manage observation, the wise offer counsel, and the brave provide defense. The ruler need only sit in Wuwei (non-action), naturally aligning with the Dao, and the people will naturally follow. This represents the highest art of governance.
Later, Jianwu met the madman Jieyu, who asked: "What did Rizhongshi ('Noontide Beginner') tell you?" Jianwu replied: "He said governing people requires establishing laws oneself, guiding them with benevolence and righteousness—who then would dare disobey?" Jieyu criticized this: "Such methods violate innate nature. Constraining all things by personal will only makes them lose their authenticity. Governing this way is as absurd as walking across oceans, dredging the Yellow River with bare hands, or making mosquitoes carry mountains."
Jieyu continued: "Do sage rulers govern through external regulations? They simply rectify their own nature, then extend this to others, allowing each person to fully realize their innate potential (the key lies in inner cultivation and Wuwei governance—first correct one's own nature, then influence others; never force people beyond their capacity)."
[Supplementary Notes]
1. "Respond as horse when called horse, as ox when called ox" originates from Laozi, embodying the Daoist principle of following nature beyond distinctions.
2. "Beiyi Wangni" appears in Zhuangzi as a realized Daoist recluse.
3. The text contrasts two governance models: Shun's "governing through action" versus Tai's "governing through Wuwei."
4. "Rizhongshi" is a fictional character whose name suggests obsession with artificial beginnings.
5. "False virtue (Qi De)" refers to hypocritical morality violating natural authenticity.
(Continuing from the previous passage: “able.”) Besides, birds fly high to escape the harm of arrows and nets, while mice dig deep burrows beneath sacred mounds to avoid the danger of smoke and excavation. Even these two small creatures know how to protect themselves. Can the people be less capable than they are? If laws and regulations must be imposed, disrupting the nature they already possess and filling people’s minds with thoughts of how to escape harm, how could the world ever be governed well?
Tian Gen was traveling on the southern slope of Yin Mountain. When he reached the banks of the Liao River, he happened to meet a nameless man and went up to ask him, “May I ask how the world should be governed?”
The nameless man said, “Go away! You are a shallow-minded person. Why ask such an unpleasant question?” (His words leave the listener feeling ill at ease.)
He continued, “I am about to join the Creator in bringing the people to life and nurturing them. If I grow weary of this, I will again mount that vast, soaring bird, fly beyond the Six Extremes, and roam in the realm of nothingness, dwelling in the boundless open wilderness. Why trouble my mind with the business of governing the world?” (“Weary” means disdainful: disdaining to bustle about among people, he would rather leave the world, ride the vast bird, fly beyond the Six Extremes, and soar through the air, transcending Yin-Yang. To roam in “nothingness” and dwell in the vast emptiness is to enter the realm of the Dao. Whether to delight in the world or disdain it is up to him; he comes and goes without a trace. How could he be willing to make the world his own concern? Why trouble his mind with governing it?)
Tian Gen asked again. The nameless man said, “Let your mind roam in serenity and simplicity, let your breath blend with stillness, follow the natural course of the myriad things, and hold not a trace of self-interest. Then the world will settle into peace of its own accord.” (For the mind to roam in serenity and simplicity is to preserve stillness and clarity at all times; for the breath to blend with the vast silence is to be without sound or smell. To act without contrivance and without self-interest is the way the ancients governed.)
Yang Ju went to see Lao Dan and said, “There is a person here who reacts swiftly (quick to grasp the Dao), is strong and resolute (bold in putting it into practice), understands the myriad things (knows the nature of things), is perceptive and clear-sighted, and never tires of studying the Dao. Can such a person measure up to an enlightened king?” (“Measure up” means “be equal to.”)
Lao Dan said, “Compared with a sage, such a person is no more than a weary servant taking turns on duty, or a craftsman chained to his work in a workshop.”
This passage discusses the principles by which an "enlightened ruler" governs the world, as well as the ideal state a Daoist practitioner should attain.
The text begins with several metaphors: tigers and leopards are hunted for their beautiful fur, while monkeys and hunting dogs are tethered for their usefulness. These examples illustrate how those who exhaust their minds and strength serving the world are ultimately bound by their own talents. Yang Ziju (a person's name) respectfully sought Laozi's advice on the enlightened ruler's way of governance. Laozi replied: "A true enlightened ruler, though his achievements cover all under heaven, acts as if he did nothing; though he benefits all things, the people feel no dependence; though possessing supreme reputation, he remains inconspicuous; he lets all things flourish naturally." Such a ruler dwells in unfathomable depths and wanders in the realm of nothingness.
The passage then relates a story: In the state of Zheng, there was a diviner named Ji Xian who could predict life, death, fortune, and misfortune with such accuracy that people fled at the sight of him. When the Daoist philosopher Liezi witnessed this, he became deeply impressed and told his teacher Huzi: "I originally thought your Dao was supreme, but now I've found someone even more advanced." Huzi pointed out: "You've only grasped superficial techniques, not the essence—how can this be considered attaining the Dao? It's like having hens without a rooster—how could eggs be hatched? When you confront the world with this half-baked understanding of Daoist practice, naturally people will see through you."
Huzi's meaning is this: The true way of an emperor lies in maintaining inner emptiness and Wuwei (non-action). If one deliberately displays abilities or pursues achievements, others will discern one's vulnerabilities. A Daoist practitioner should reach a state of no-mind, where external signs cannot manifest, making one truly unfathomable to others.
This passage comes from the story in the Zhuangzi (Classic of the Way and Virtue) about Liezi studying with Huzhi. The commentary describes how Huzhi showed four different appearances and how Jixian read his face four times.
Someone makes a show of himself in public so that people will believe in him, and they can then come to have their faces read. Jixian tried to go with Liezi and get Huzhi to show himself to him. The next day, Liezi took Jixian to see Huzhi. Huzhi came out and said to Liezi, “Alas, your teacher is dead; he cannot be saved and will not last ten days. What I saw was a strange appearance, like wet ashes”—the fire has gone out and the ashes are damp again, with no sign of life. Liezi went inside, cried until his sleeves were wet, and told Huzhi what Jixian had said. Huzhi replied, “Just now I showed him the Earth Pattern (Diwen): life hidden beneath the nine layers of earth, like a seed buried in soil that has not yet stirred. It was the appearance of a sprout, neither moving nor settled. He must have seen my Hidden Virtue’s Impulse (Dudeji). ‘Hidden’ means closed away; the ‘impulse of Virtue’ is the first stir of life. It is as if something is about to grow but does not move, and as if it is dead, so it seems unsettled. Bring him again.”
The next day, Liezi brought Jixian back. Huzhi came out and said to Liezi, “What good fortune! Your teacher has encountered me and can be saved; he is fully alive. I saw his Hidden Balance (Duquan): ‘balance’ means weighing and setting in motion. There is already movement within what is concealed, like the movement of a weight on a scale.” Liezi went inside and told Huzhi. Huzhi said, “Just now I showed him the Heavenly Ground (Tianrang). The commentators point out that earlier the text says ‘Earth Pattern,’ not ‘earthly ground,’ and here it says ‘Heavenly Ground,’ not ‘Heavenly Pattern’; the choice of words is precise. The mind wanders in empty space. Neither names nor realities enter the mind, and the impulse rises from the heels. He must have seen my Impulse of the Good (Shanzheji): the mind is empty and attached to nothing, so names and realities do not enter; only a current of life rises from the heel. ‘Heel’ here is the heel in the saying that the True Person ‘breathes from his heels’; it is an acupoint in the body, like a bubbling spring. The ‘good impulse’ is a fine mechanism, the stirring of life. Bring him again.”
The next day, Liezi brought Jixian back once more. Huzhi came out and said to Liezi, “Your teacher is unsettled, shifting between movement and stillness. I cannot read his face. Wait until he is settled, then bring him to be read.” Liezi went inside and told Huzhi. Huzhi said, “Just now I showed him Great Impulse, Neither Prevailing (Taichong Mosheng). He must have seen my Balanced Qi Impulse (Hengqiji). Lü Huiqing explains that in the Earth Pattern, Yin prevails over Yang, while in the Heavenly Ground, Yang prevails over Yin. In the Qi of the Great Impulse, neither side can prevail, so it appears unsettled. ‘Neither prevailing’ means held in balance, like a scale; hence the name Balanced Qi Impulse. Like the Heavenly Ground and the Earth Pattern, Great Impulse, Neither Prevailing is also a description of an appearance. Bring him again.”
Brief background: This Daoist story concerns showing one’s appearance and stages of cultivation. Huzhi presents four kinds of “impulse”—the Hidden Virtue’s Impulse, the Impulse of the Good, the Balanced Qi Impulse, and others—each corresponding to a different level. Jixian can see only outward appearances and cannot understand the life within them, so each time he reads Huzhi’s face, his interpretation goes further astray.
“The deep pool where the water creature circles”: The creature’s name means a small fish, and “circling” means swimming around. The word for “pool” means a place or dwelling. A deep pool is still and unfathomable. The fish circles through the water, suggesting subtle movement within stillness. This represents the hidden mechanism of what is good in Heaven and Earth—the mechanism of life and of change.
“The deep pool of still water”: Water that is completely motionless represents the hidden mechanism of Earth’s pattern and virtue, which is sealed away and does not display its force.
“The deep pool of flowing water”: Water that flows and pauses, keeping just the right balance, suggests a level measure. It represents the mechanism of the balanced Qi of the Great Vacuity, which cannot be overcome.
“There are nine names for the deep pool; here, three are given.” There are nine names for the deep abyss, but only three are mentioned here. The mechanism that issues from the heels is the circling fish; what neither stirs nor is out of alignment is still water; what is uneven is flowing water. Hence the words “here, three are given”: these three are introduced first, but the subtlety of the matter has not yet been fully explained.
Liezi then brought Jixian to meet Huzǐ again. Huzǐ stood upright. Jixian’s mind was unsettled; feeling at a loss, he fled. Huzǐ said, “Catch up with him.” Liezi could not, and returned to report what had happened. Huzǐ said, “His traces have vanished; all that could be discerned has disappeared. I cannot catch up with him.”
Huzǐ said, “Just now, what I showed him had not yet departed from my original source.” The original source is what Chan Buddhism calls original nature and Daoism calls the Original Spirit. “Had not yet departed” means that a small measure of Yang spirit had been gathered and concealed within the Qi cavity: in other words, one had taken root deeply and settled into stillness. Jixian used his mind to read another person’s mind. I was without intention, so the image he sought to grasp in my mind had no firm basis; he lost his bearings and fled.
“I was empty and shifting with things, and he could not tell what I was.” I did not merely seal off the mechanism and remain still; there was no mechanism at all. I followed change naturally, shifting and drifting in ways that defied description.
“I let myself become withered and drooping; I let myself become flowing waves, and so he fled.” When still, I seemed withered and listless, yet he could not know me as “withered.” When moving, I seemed like flowing waves, yet he could not know me as “flowing.” He could not find me by searching between movement and stillness, so Jixian fled.
When Jixian saw Huzǐ sitting still like a corpse, as if in seated forgetfulness, he said he was about to die. When he saw Huzǐ’s spirit move in accord with Heaven, he said there was still life in him. To respond to affairs without private intent, so that principle accords with the mysterious spontaneously, and to rise and fall with transformation, taking the world as one’s measure—only then can one truly be master of things and follow the seasons without limit. Such a person cannot be fathomed by someone who reads faces. This is the general meaning of the “Responding to Emperors and Kings” chapter.
Liezi therefore came to believe that he had not yet learned the Dao—or that what he had learned had not yet reached its beginning.
I. Learning the Dao and Returning to the Genuine
After completing his studies and returning home, he did not go out for three years. (The passage that follows points directly to the true essentials of learning.) He cooked for his wife (the character cuàn, “to cook,” is pronounced like cuàn, “to flee”). He ate pork as though he were eating a person (the character shí, “to eat,” is pronounced like sì, “to inherit”)—he made no distinctions between things as close or distant. Having been carved and polished, he returned to simplicity. He stood alone, solid and self-contained, existing solely in bodily form; amid disorder, he nevertheless kept to his bounds. He remained this way throughout his life.
Explanation: He cooked for his wife without being aware of her as his wife; he ate pork as though it were a person, without being aware of things as things; and he went about his affairs without distinguishing closeness from distance, or people from matters. To be carved and then return to simplicity means to have been shaped and polished, yet return to what is plain and unadorned. To stand alone, solid and self-contained, existing in bodily form, is to be without emotion or deliberate action. To be amid disorder yet keep to one’s bounds is not to let disorder go so far that all boundaries are lost. To remain thus throughout means to make this one’s way for an entire lifetime.
II. Four Essentials of “Non-” in Learning the Dao
Do not be a puppet of reputation: Do not let yourself be made an instrument of fame.
Do not be a storehouse of schemes: Do not make yourself a repository for strategies.
Do not be a bearer of responsibilities: Do not make yourself the one who takes charge of affairs.
Do not be the master of knowledge: Do not set yourself up as the authority on wisdom.
Explanation: What is real—the Dao—is the master of reputation. I keep my light concealed and remain inactive, not making myself a puppet of fame. Gathering many ideas is a way of amassing schemes; I set aside cleverness and close my ears to distractions, not making myself a storehouse of strategies. Separating the pure from the turbid is a way of taking charge of affairs; I mingle with the dust and grime, not making myself the bearer of responsibilities. Learning adds to one’s knowledge, but I seek knowledge by showing the patterns of the earth—that is, by remaining obscure—and do not make myself the master of knowledge.
One who studies the Dao must first embody these four forms of “non-action” before entering the Dao. This is of utmost importance.
III. The Perfected Person’s Mind Is Like a Mirror
His being encompasses the limitless, and he wanders where there are no traces: He exhausts what he received from Heaven, yet does not claim to possess anything; he is simply empty.
Ordinary people take their bodily form as their being, so their being has limits and their wandering has boundaries. The Perfected Person takes his spirit as his being, so his being has no limits and his wandering leaves no traces. To exhaust what one received from Heaven without losing the slightest part of it is no small accomplishment. Yet he does not consider himself to have gained insight; he is simply empty. This is the state Yan Hui described as “full, yet seeming empty.”
The Perfected Person uses his mind like a mirror: it neither sends things on nor goes out to meet them; it responds to them but stores nothing away. Thus he can prevail over things without being harmed by them.
Guo Xiang says: “Like a mirror” means reflecting things without emotion. It neither sends things on nor goes out to meet them, and stores nothing away: when things come, it responds; when they depart, it stops. When things arrive, it reflects them, but does not reflect through the mind. Thus, though the world is vast, there is no worry that the spirit will be wearied. This is the meaning of the Jing of Settling the Mind and Observing (Dingguan Jing): to treat action as the trace of response, and non-action as one’s true abode.
IV. Shu, Hu, and Hundun
The ruler of the South Sea was named Shu (pronounced shū), the ruler of the North Sea was named Hu, and the ruler of the Center was named Hundun. Shu and Hu often went to visit one another…
Notes on specialized terms:
- Perfected Person (zhiren): The Daoist ideal of a person who has attained the Dao and transcended the ordinary.
- Wuwei (non-action): Not doing nothing, but avoiding forced or reckless action and following the natural course of things.
- Solid and self-contained (kuairan): A plain, unknowing state, like a clod of earth.
- Without traces (wu zhen): Without boundaries or marks.
- Hundun: The undivided state before things separated; in Daoism, a natural and original condition.
When Shu and Hu met Hun Dun, he treated them very well. Shu and Hu discussed how to repay his kindness. “Everyone else has seven openings, through which they see, hear, eat, drink, and breathe. He alone has none. Let us try making seven openings for him.” So each day they bored one opening. On the seventh day, Hun Dun died.
Lu Xixing’s Commentary
Lu Xixing says: The Lord of the Southern Sea belongs to the Virtue of Fire, the Lord of the Northern Sea to the Virtue of Water, and the Lord of the Center to the Virtue of Earth. Water flows and fire blazes, so one is called Shu and the other Hu. Earth rests at the center, its energy and substance undivided and unformed, so it is called Hun Dun. This parable is in fact an image of the human body: the Five Phases and the Four Images all return to the central palace. The Lord of the Center treated them well. The two lords ought to have repaid his kindness by listening inwardly, turning their gaze back within, and blending in harmony. Instead, they repaid him through sound, sight, scent, and taste. They bored one opening each day, enabling him to see, hear, eat, drink, and breathe; when the seven openings were complete, Hun Dun died. Hun Dun exists within everyone. Ever since the body took form and spirit arose, we have been led astray by knowledge and transformed by things. The six sense organs are stained by the six sense objects, and the six objects give rise to the six consciousnesses. We then chase the false and lose sight of the true, moving ever farther from the Dao.
Notes by Fugui Zi
Fugui Zi says: The central meaning of this chapter rests on Laozi’s words, “Humanity models itself on Earth; Earth models itself on Heaven; Heaven models itself on the Dao; the Dao models itself on what is so of itself.” The hope is that rulers today will follow this as well. Nie Que asked Wang Ni about the Way of governing the world and received “I don’t know” four times. This contains the idea of “knowing nothing and being unaware, while following the emperor’s pattern.” But who can say that “not knowing” is not another kind of knowing? It is said that Youyu hid his benevolence to win people over and had not yet freed himself from being “other than human.” As for Taishi, he slept slowly and moved easily when awake. He seems to have had the bearing of someone who possessed the Dao: at ease in his movements, true in both dream and waking, and whole as a single Heaven. Why, then, had he still not entered the state of being “other than human”? The highest Dao forgets the Dao. As for those who govern the world: ritual can be set aside, righteousness can be set aside, laws and regulations can be set aside, and restraints can be set aside. If one relies on these alone to transform people, they may not truly be transformed. This is what Kuang Jieyu called “deceitful Virtue.” How is that different from crossing the sea by digging a channel, or making a mosquito carry a mountain? I have heard that under the rule of sage kings, when their bodies were upright, their shadows were upright too, and people were led to set their own nature and life in order. I have never heard that their wisdom fell below that of birds and mice fleeing danger—and that would still not be enough. If one does not contemplate the “Nameless,” then, though the body remains within the work of creation, the spirit roams beyond the six directions. This is called going out into existence and entering into nonexistence; it may also be called dwelling in the vast, open wilderness.
A plain-language reading of the Commentary and Subcommentary on the True Classic of Southern Florescence
One may refuse to make governing the world one’s own concern, yet insist on asking someone else how to govern it. Before setting the people of the world in order, that person has first put himself in order: he lets his mind roam in calm detachment and allows his Qi to merge with stillness. He is then at peace. By following the natural course of all things and harboring no selfish intent, the world, too, comes to rest.
But this is not enough. Yang Juzhu, also known as Liezi, once eagerly sought instruction from Ji, Jiang, and Liang, believing himself to have attained understanding. To clear-sighted observers, those who study diligently to seek the Dao and compare themselves to enlightened rulers are, beside a sage, no better than clerks laboring through shifts or craftsmen tethered to their work. They are like tigers and leopards whose fine pelts bring hunters after them, or dogs tethered for the hunt because they are skilled at catching rabbits. None can find ease for themselves. There is a way to possess the Dao: achieve great merit throughout the world without claiming credit; nurture and transform the myriad things without making the people depend on you. Such a person is hard to name and hard to fathom; there is neither praise nor trace. The enlightened ruler Laozi spoke of—how could it be so easy to become one?
In the state of Zheng lived Jixian, a divine shaman who could foretell people’s life and death, fortune and misfortune. He knew that without a male bird’s egg, even many female birds could hatch nothing. He knew that what shows its sharp edge can easily be assessed by an onlooker. Yet he judged only by appearances and did not know that the Master of the Pot could take charge of life and death himself, rather than leave them to the Creator’s arrangements. When Jixian first saw the Master of the Pot, he thought he was about to die. Little did he know that the Master of the Pot had hidden the vital impulse in the pattern of the earth: unmoved and unyielding, he closed off the sprout of his De. When Jixian saw him a second time, he thought his condition had improved. Little did he know that the Master of the Pot had raised the vital impulse to the boundary of Heaven and Earth, where its movement began at the heels and its excellent potential was fully revealed. At the third meeting, Jixian thought his complexion was uneven and that he could no longer read his appearance. Little did he know that the Master of the Pot was showing him the supreme fullness of the Great Equilibrium, where the movement of Qi is balanced by neither motion nor stillness.
The Master of the Pot’s Dao was deep and unfathomable. The impulse beginning at the heels was an abyss where giant salamanders lurk; being unmoved and unyielding was an abyss of still water; an uneven complexion was an abyss of flowing water. The Master of the Pot had nine abysses, like springs that well up from the depths now and then. Jixian saw only three and never glimpsed all that lay hidden within. At the fourth meeting, Jixian looked at the Master of the Pot and fled. Little did he know that the Master of the Pot was showing him that he had “never departed from my source.” In the Dao, this source is the Great Void; in Heaven, it is the handle of the Northern Dipper; in Confucianism, it is the unity that runs through all; in Daoism, it is the true master within; in Buddhism, it is the original face. One who has never departed from the source is rooted deeply and settled at the utmost stillness, changing beyond all measure. Where, then, could a physiognomist fix his gaze?
Thus he had no choice but to let Liezi flee. Liezi then met those who came before him, learned from them, and returned home. He shut himself away and did not go out for three years. He cooked for his wife and treated pigs as he would treat people, forgetting both the external world and himself. In his dealings, he showed no partiality. Primal simplicity had been restored, and his aspirations were in mysterious accord with the Dao. He did not serve as a vessel for fame, so fame departed of its own accord; he did not serve as a storehouse for schemes, so schemes did not gather; he did not take on the burden of affairs, so affairs gradually dissolved; he did not rule over knowledge, so knowledge became muddled and the body was forgotten. He roamed in the boundless, within the unmarked, wholly one with reality, like the Perfected One of utmost emptiness. Nothing is as empty as a mirror: things come and leave no trace; things go and leave nothing behind. They come and go as they will, while I remain unharmed. The Perfected One is perhaps like this.
The Southern Emperor, who governs fire and embodies its De, can both illuminate and dry out; hence his name Shu. The Northern Emperor, who rules water and embodies its nature, can both nourish and flow; hence his name Hu. The Yellow Emperor of the Center occupies the central position and embodies the De of earth, which flourishes in all four seasons. Fire, when it receives earth, is extinguished; water, when it receives earth, is brought to a halt. Hence his name Hun Dun. In the human body, water and fire meet in the central palace of earth; this is called “great goodness.” No way of repaying De surpasses emptiness, stillness, calm, indifference, and Wuwei (non-action). Yet people cast sound, sight, smell, and taste upon it, boring one aperture each day. Inevitably, the Hun leaks through the eyes, the Po through the nose, the Shen through the mouth, the Jing through the ears, and the intent through the limbs. Once all seven apertures have been bored, the original Shen is lost and the discriminating spirit takes charge; the whole body is pure Yin, and so Hun Dun dies. They do not know that the Yang of the Returning Hexagram comes back after seven days. Great practitioners take advantage of this return after seven days: they do not look, and the Hun remains in the liver; they do not listen, and the Jing remains in the kidneys; they do not speak, and the Shen remains in the heart; they do not smell, and the Po remains in the lungs; they do not move their limbs, and intent remains in the spleen. Thus the Five Qi gather before the Origin. This is called repaying Hun Dun’s De.
Source text: Kanripo 漢籍リポジトリ（KR5i0036）; Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Report an error / feedback