Chuang Tzu

The Book of Chuang Tzu

The Inner Chapters by Chuang TzuThe Inner Chapter One:

Free and Easy Wandering

The Inner Chapter Two:Theories on all things being equal

The Inner Chapter Three:Opinions on Nurturing Life

The Inner Chapter Four:Relating to the Human World

The Inner Chapter Five:Calculations on Filfilling Virtue

The Inner Chapter Six:

Teachings from those who were Great

who are no longer alive

The Inner Chapter Seven:Responding to (Complying with) Emperors and Kings

Interpretations of The Inner Chapters

Interpretation of Chapter 1:Loosening the Bonds of our Fixed

Preconceptions - The Tao Way

Interpretation of Chapter 2:Overcome Dualism by Smoothing Things Out

Interpretation of Chapter 3:

Skills as Expression of Dao

Interpretation of Chapter 4:

Avoid Involvement in Society and its Conflicts - Stay Natural

Interpretation of Chapter 5:

Deviance as a Virtue beyond Social andNatural Conventions - the Art of Nature

Interpretation of Chapter 6:

The Tao of Stoicism and Sociality

Interpretation of Chapter 7:

Preserve your Life by withdrawing from Society

Chapter 1:Free and Easy Wandering

In the northern darkness there is a fish and his name is K’un. The K’un is so huge I don’tknow how many thousand li he measures. He changes and becomes a bird whose name isP’eng. The back of the P’eng measures I don’t know how many thousand li across and,when he rises up and flies off, his wings are like clouds all over the sky. When the seabegins to move, this bird sets off for the southern darkness, which is the Lake of Heaven.

The Universal Harmony records various wonders, and it says: “When the P’eng journeys to thesouthern darkness, the waters are roiled for three thousand li. He beats the whirlwind and risesninety thousand li, setting off on the sixth-month gale.” Wavering heat, bits of dust, living thingsblown about by the wind - the sky looks very blue. Is that its real color, or is it because it is so faraway and has no end? When the bird looks down, all he sees is blue too.

If water is not piled up deep enough, it won’t have the strength to bear up a big boat. Pour a cup ofwater into a hollow in the floor and bits of trash will sail on it like boats. But set the cup there and itwill stick fast, for the water is too shallow and the boat too large. If wind is not piled up deepenough, it won’t have the strength to bear up great wings. Therefore when the P’eng rises ninetythousand li, he must have the wind under him like that. Only then can he mount on the back of thewind, shoulder the blue sky, and nothing can hinder or block him. Only then can he set his eyes tothe south.

The cicada and the little dove laugh at this saying, “When we make an effort and fly up, we can getas far as the elm or the sapanwood tree, but sometimes we don’t make it and just fall down on theground. Now how is anyone going to go ninety thousand li to the south!”

If you go off to the green woods nearby, you can take along food for three meals and come backwith your stomach as full as ever. If you are going a hundred li, you must grind your grain thenight before; and if you are going a thousand li you must start getting together provisions threemonths in advance. What do these two creatures understand? Little understanding cannot come upto great understanding; the short-lived cannot come up to the long-lived.

How do I know this is so? The morning mushroom knows nothing of twilight and dawn; thesummer cicada knows nothing of spring and autumn. They are short-lived. South of Ch’u there is acaterpillar which counts five hundred years as one spring and five hundred years as one autumn.Long, long ago there was a great rose of Sharon that counted eight thousand years as one springand eight thousand years as one autumn. Yet P’eng-tsu alone is famous today for having lived along time, and everybody tries to ape him. Isn’t it pitiful!

Among the questions of T’ang to Ch’i we find the same thing. In the bald and barren north, there isa dark sea, the Lake of Heaven. In it is a fish which is several thousand li across, and no one knowshow long. His name is K’un. there is also a bird there, named P’eng, with a back like Mount T’aiand wings like clouds filling the sky. He beats the whirlwind, leaps into the air, and rises up ninetythousand li, cutting through the clouds and mist, shouldering the blue sky, and then he turns hiseyes south and prepares to journey to the southern darkness.

The little quail laughs at him, saying, “Where does he think he’s going? I give a great leap and flyup, but I never get more than ten or twelve yards before I come down fluttering among the weedsand brambles. And that’s the best kind of flying anyway! Where does he think he’s going?” Such isthe difference between big and little.

Therefore a man who has wisdom enough to fill one office effectively, good conduct enough toimpress one community, virtue enough to please one ruler, or talent enough to be called into servicein one state, has the same kind of self-pride as these little creatures. Sung Jung-tzu would certainlyburst out laughing at such a man. The whole world could praise Sung Jung-tzu and it wouldn’tmake him exert himself; the whole world could condemn him and it wouldn’t make him mope. Hedrew a clear line between the internal and the external, and recognized the boundaries of true gloryand disgrace. But that was all. As far as the world went, he didn’t fret or worry, but there was stillground he left unturned.

Lieh Tzu could ride the wind and go soaring around with cool and breezy skill, but after fifteendays he came back to earth. As far as the search for good fortune went, he didn’t fret and worry.He escaped the trouble of walking, but he still had to depend on something to get around. If he hadonly mounted on the truth of Heaven and Earth, ridden the changes of the six breaths, and thuswandered through the boundless, then what would he have had to depend on?

Therefore I say, the Perfect Man has no self; the Holy Man has no merit; the Sage has no fame. Yaowanted to cede the empire to Hsü Yu. “When the sun and moon have already come out,” he said,“it’s a waste of light to go on burning the torches, isn’t it? When the seasonal rains are falling, it’s awaste of water to go on irrigating the fields. If you took the throne, the world would be wellordered. I go on occupying it, but all I can see are my failings. I beg to turn over the world to you.”

Hsü Yu said, “You govern the world and the world is already well governed. Now if I take yourplace, will I be doing it for a name? But name is only the guest of reality - will I be doing it so I canplay the part of a guest? When the tailor-bird builds her nest in the deep wood, she uses no morethan one branch. When the mole drinks at the river, he takes no more than a bellyful. Go home andforget the matter, my lord. I have no use for the rulership of the world! Though the cook may notrun his kitchen properly, the priest and the impersonator of the dead at the sacrifice do not leapover the wine casks and sacrificial stands and go take his place.” Chien Wu said to Lien Shu, “I waslistening to Chieh Yü’s talk - big and nothing to back it up, going on and on without turningaround. I was completely dumbfounded at his words - no more end than the Milky Way, wild andwide of the mark, never coming near human affairs!”

“What were his words like?” asked Lien Shu.

“He said that there is a Holy Man living on faraway Ku-she Mountain, with skin like ice or snow,and gentle and shy like a young girl. He doesn’t eat the five grains, but sucks the wind, drinks thedew, climbs up on the clouds and mist, rides a flying dragon, and wanders beyond the four seas. Byconcentrating his spirit, he can protect creatures from sickness and plague and make the harvestplentiful. I thought this was all insane and refused to believe it.”

“You would!” said Lien Shu. “We can’t expect a blind man to appreciate beautiful patterns or adeaf man to listen to bells and drums. And blindness and deafness are not confined to the bodyalone - the understanding has them too, as your words just now have shown. This man, with thisvirtue of his, is about to embrace the ten thousand things and roll them into one. Though the agecalls for reform, why should he wear himself out over the affairs of the world? There is nothing thatcan harm this man. Though flood waters pile up to the sky, he will not drown. Though a greatdrought melts metal and stone and scorches the earth and hills, he will not be burned. From hisdust and leavings alone you could mold a Yao or a Shun! Why should he consent to bother aboutmere things?”

A man of Sung who sold ceremonial hats made a trip to Yüeh, but the Yüeh people cut their hairshort and tattoo their bodies and had no use for such things. Yao brought order to the people of theworld and directed the government of all within the seas. But he went to see the Four Masters of thefar away Ku-she Mountain, and when he got home north of the Fen River, he was dazed and hadforgotten his kingdom there. Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, “The king of Wei gave me some seeds ofa huge gourd. I planted them, and when they grew up, the fruit was big enough to hold five piculs. Itried using it for a water container, but it was so heavy I couldn’t lift it. I split it in half to makedippers, but they were so large and unwieldly that I couldn’t dip them into anything. It’s not thatthe gourds weren’t fantastically big - but I decided they were no use and so I smashed them topieces.”

Chuang Tzu said, “You certainly are dense when it comes to using big things! In Sung there was aman who was skilled at making a salve to prevent chapped hands, and generation after generationhis family made a living by bleaching silk in water. A traveler heard about the salve and offered tobuy the prescription for a hundred measures of gold. The man called everyone to a family council.`For generations we’ve been bleaching silk and we’ve never made more than a few measures ofgold,’ he said. `Now, if we sell our secret, we can make a hundred measures in one morning. Let’slet him have it!’ The traveler got the salve and introduced it to the king of Wu, who was havingtrouble with the state of Yüeh. The king put the man in charge of his troops, and that winter theyfought a naval battle with the men of Yüeh and gave them a bad beating. A portion of theconquered territory was awarded to the man as a fief. The salve had the power to prevent chappedhands in either case; but one made used it to get a fief, while the other one never got beyond silkbleaching - because they used it in different ways. Now you had a gourd big enough to hold fivepiculs. Why didn’t you think of making it into a great tub so you could go floating around the riversand lakes, instead of worrying because it was too big and unwieldly to dip into things! Obviouslyyou still have a lot of underbrush in your head!”

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, “I have a big tree named ailanthus. Its trunk is too gnarled andbumpy to apply a measuring line to, its branches too bent and twisty to match up to a compass orsquare. You could stand it by the road and no carpenter would look at it twice. Your words, too,are big and useless, and so everyone alike spurns them!”

Chuang Tzu said, “Maybe you’ve never seen a wildcat or a weasel. It crouches down and hides,watching for something to some along. It leaps and races east and west, not hesitating to go high orlow - until it falls into the trap and dies in the net. Then again there’s the yak, big as a cloudcovering the sky. It certainly knows how to be big, though it doesn’t know how to catch rats. Nowyou have this big tree and you’re distressed because it’s useless. Why don’t you plant it in Not-Even-Anything Village, or the field of Broad-and-Boundless, relax and do nothing by its side, or lie

down for a free and easy sleep under it? Axes will never shorten its life, nothing can ever harm it. ifthere’s no use for it, how can it come to grief or pain?”

The Inner Chapter Two:

Theories on all things being equal

Nan Guo Zi Qi (Mr. Intense of a Southern neighborhood) sat alone at his table, looking up at thesky and sighing. He seemed despondent, as though he’d lost an important part of himself.

Yan Cheng Zi You (Mr. Image of a Succesful Traveler) stood waiting patiently in front of him, thensaid: “Who is it that’s sitting here? Can a body really be made to resemble dead wood, and a heartbe made to resemble dying embers? Now this lone man sitting at his table isn’t the same personwho was sitting here a while ago.”

Zi Qi said:

“Sitting here, I didn’t think it was good to question what was happening, but I’ll come up with ananswer! At this moment I lost myself - do you know what I mean? You may have heard the musicmade by people, but not heard the music made by the earth. You may have heard the music madeby the earth, but not heard the music made by the heavens.”

Zi You replied:

“I’d really appreciate it if you’d explain more about that.” Zi Qi said:

“When the Great Clod (the earth) belches vapors, it’s called the wind. That’s only the beginning.Then it proceeds to rage and make loud noises through all the valleys and holes on earth. Haven’tyou ever heard the sounds of the wind blowing? In the awesome elegant mountain forests there arehuge trees surrounded by crevaces and caves which are like noses, like mouths, like ears, likesockets, like goblets, like mortars, like canals, like sewers. Roaring, screeching, shouting, sucking,wailing, howling, whistling, growling, the headwinds sing “Yoooh!”, and the tailwinds sing“Yaaah!” The soft winds contribute the undertones, and the strong winds contribute the overtones.The harsh winds blow through all the empty holes and caves. Haven’t you ever been an audience tothis harmonious melody, to these peculiar sounding instruments?”

Zi You replied:

“The music produced by the earth uses the many crevaces and caves. The music produced bypeople uses various bamboo instruments. I’d appreciate it if you’d explain more about the music ofthe heavens.”

Zi Qi said:

“It blows on each of the thousands of things differently, but makes each of them follow their ownpatterns. By themselves they all attain what’s right for them, so is there anyone who’d really beable to enslave them?”

Great knowledge concentrates on what’s close and vivid.

Small knowledge concentrates on what’s far away and obscure.

Big talk is bright and flashy.

Small talk is chattering and scattered.

When sleeping there’s a connection with the spirit.

When awake other shapes are revealed.

Connecting and meeting together, each day our hearts and minds compete. We may becomeapathetic, depressed and secretive. Small fears create worry and concern. Big fears create apathyand seclusion. They shoot out like arrows from a crossbow, trying to take control of what theydetermine to be Right or Wrong. They kill as easily as autumn turns to winter, using words thatvanish in the course of a day. They indulge in their own motivated actions, not being able to turnaway from them. Their disgust closes in on them, and they use words that have become as stagnantas sewer water. Nearly dead in their hearts, nothing can cause them to return to seeing the brightside of things. All they experience is happiness/anger, sorrow/pleasure,worry/distress, adaptability/restrictions, stress/laziness, openness/pretense.

Enjoyment can arise from what was once empty, just like mushrooms can be produced by thevapors on the soil. Day and night naturally follow each other, and no one knows how that happens.Enough! Enough already! There’s dawn, and there’s sunset. They each have their place forcreating life!

There is no “other” without a “me.” There is no “me” without something to grab hold of. Thatseems easy enough to understand, but if it’s not understood there’s no reason to do anything else. Itmight seem like there’s some perfect truth, but what’s special can’t really be observed clearly. It’spossible to have personal beliefs, but not to allow them take an actual form - to have feelings aboutthings but not to create dogma around them.

A hundred bones, nine openings and six organs complete our existence. Which of those do we feelclosest to? Do you express joy for all of them? Do you cherish one over another? Don’t they all actas your servants? Are any of those servants capable enough to control one of the others? Do any ofthem give themself over as a servant and accept another as their ruler? Does a truly perfect rulerexist among them? If we try to extablish that kind of heirarchy, their working relationship wouldbecome useless and decrease to the point where nothing would work in perfect harmony. Oncewe’ve received this body, we don’t lose the use of it until we’ve exhausted it.

Living things destroy each other and make waste of each other. They wear themselves out bygalloping all over the place, and nothing is able to stop them. Isn’t that sad! After a whole life ofbattling and fighting, they still don’t achieve the success they were reaching for. They’ve tiredthemselves out completely with all their battling, and still don’t have a clue how to get out of it.That’s definitely something to be sad about! What advantage is it for anyone to speak aboutImmortality? If their shape is so twisted that their minds can’t make sense any more, that’s reallyincredibly sad! Are people originally born with those kinds of ridiculous thoughts? Am I the onlyone who thinks that’s ridiculous, or are there others who agree?

If it was meant for everyone to follow a teacher, would there be a single person who’d be without ateacher for a moment? Does the quest for knowledge mean replacing one’s true feelings with theteachings of someone else? Fools tend to group together. If you haven’t yet succeded in connectingwith your own heart but have a sense of Right and Wrong, that’s as silly as thinking you could setout for Yue today and arrive there yesterday. That would be like trying to make something out ofnothing. To make something out of nothing - even the Great Yu wouldn’t know how to do that.How could one as simple as me be able to follow those instructions!

Speaking isn’t merely blowing wind out of our mouths. One who speaks is actually sayingsomething. But what he’s intending to say might seem really vague. So what’s the point ofspeaking? What if there were no words? Speaking is thought to be different from the chirping ofbaby birds. Can words be used to clarify? Can they be used to confuse? How has Dao become sohidden that there is True and False? How has speech become so hidden that there is Right andWrong?

Where is it that Dao doesn’t exist?

Which words are there that shouldn’t exist?

Dao is hidden in small accomplishments.

Words are hidden in grandiose speeches.

Then we have the Confucian and Mohist ideas of Right and Wrong. What one thinks is Right, theother thinks is Wrong. What one thinks is Wrong, the other thinks is Right. In order to make Rightinto Wrong, and Wrong into Right - then you’d really have to be sharp-sighted.

Things are merely a That or a This. If you look at something as a That, it can’t be seen clearly. Ifyou have knowledge of yourself, others can be understood.Therefore, it’s been said:

“That stems from This, and This is also on account of That.” That and This make comparisonsabout life with their own theories.

So…….

One may compare life to death,

One may compare death to life;

One may compare what’s suitable with what’s not suitable; One may compare what’s not suitablewith what’s suitable; The reason there is Right is because there is Wrong, The reason there isWrong is because there is Right.

Therefore, a wise person doesn’t follow that course of reasoning, but reflects on what comes fromthe heavens, using this reasoning:

This is also That.

That is also This.

That has a set of Rights and a set of Wrongs.

This has a set of Rights and a set of Wrongs.

Does that result in there still being a That and a This? Is the result that there is no longer a Thatand a This? When That and This find nothing to keep them apart - that’s refered to as the pivot ofDao. Only when the pivot is in the middle of an unbroken ring can it respond endlessly. What’sRight is part of the endless circle. What’s Wrong is part of the endless circle.

That’s why it’s been said:“You really have to be sharp-sighted.” To use a finger as a representation to show what’s a fingerand what’s not a finger, isn’t as good as using something that’s not a finger as a representation ofwhat’s a finger and what’s not a finger. To use a horse as a representation to show what’s a horseand what’s not a horse, isn’t as good as using something that’s not a horse as a representation ofwhat’s a horse and what’s not a horse. Heaven and earth are fingers. The ten thousand things arehorses.

What can, can. What can’t, can’t. Go with Dao and there’s success. Things that are spoken becomeso. How could it be so? What’s so is so. How could it not be so? What’s not so is not so. Thingsactually are somewhat so. Things actually somewhat can. Without anything, nothing is so. Withoutanything, nothing can. Therefore, as to a small shoot of grass and a mighty pillar; an ugly ogre andXi Shi (woman known as an acme of beauty), what would stand out as unusual? Dao joins with allof them. To differentiate between them brings a result, and that result is their destruction.Ordinary things are without differentiation and destruction, and since they can relate to each other,they unite. Only someone with keen perception can find the unity in all things, not because oflooking for their usefulness but by dwelling in the idea that everything is ordinary. What’s ordinaryis useful. What’s useful makes connections. What makes connections gets a hold of something. Veryfew get ahold of something they’re content with. When they stop without not knowing why they’vedone that, they’re getting the gist of Dao.

To wear out your spirit and intelligence trying to unify everything without knowing they’re alreadyin harmony is called “three in the morning.” What’s meant by “three in the morning”? There was amonkey keeper who gave these instructions for feeding nuts to the monkeys: “Give them three inthe morning and four at night.” The monkeys were all outraged. So he said: “Okay, give them fourin the morning and three at night.” The monkeys were all happy. The amount they were fed didn’tchange, but their reactions showing pleasure or anger got them what they wanted. Therefore, a

wise person finds harmony with Right and Wrong and relaxes with the equality of the heavens.This is called being able to adapt.

Since ancient times people have been trying to extend their knowledge. In what way did they dothat? First they believed that things did not really exist as separate entities. That was the extent of itand nothing more needed to be added. Next, they came up with a belief that there actually wereseparate things, but they didn’t place any one thing above another. Then they came up with thebelief that some things really were above others, but they hadn’t made a determination of whichthings were Right and which were Wrong. When they came to the conclusion that they could makea distinction between what was Right and what was Wrong, they really lost their way. Losing theirway, they began to cherish their own accomplishments. Could there really be any sense ofaccomplishment while one was so lost? Could there be no sense of accomplishment while one was solost? Feeling a sense of accomplishment while lost, clansman Zhao (a famous musician) would playthe zither. Not feeling a sense of accomplishment while lost, clansman Zhao wouldn’t play thezither.

Zhao Wen played the zither. Shi Kuang weilded his baton. Hui Zi leaned against a shade tree. Howmuch did these three gentlemen know? All of them were prosperous, so they were famous for therest of their lives. Each of them were so good at what they did that they acted like it was easyenough for anyone to have the ability to be as talented as they were. However, other people didn’thave the same talents as they did, even though they had abilities in different areas. So theirdetermination to teach others was in vain and their talent died with them. Furthermore, all ofWen’s students kept fiddling with the strings for the rest of their lives, but in all that time theydidn’t accomplish anything. If that can be called an accomplishment, then I’ve also accomplishedthings. If that can’t be called accomplishment, then neither I nor anyone else has accomplishedanything. Therefore, slipping into doubt about what’s dazzling, that’s what a wise person uses as a

map. Instead of looking for what’s useful, but rather accepting that everything is simply ordinary,that’s called really being sharp-sighted.

Nowadays there are all sorts of words. There’s no way to know which category they fit into. Maybethey don’t fit into any category. One category may not fit in with another. Grouped together, theymight form a new category. If they were all grouped together, then there’d be no need fordistinctions. Although that may be so, please check out these words. There was a beginning. Therehas not yet been a beginning that began anything. There is existence. There is non-existence.Existence and non-existence have not yet begun. There is no beginning to existence just as there isno beginning to non-existence. If after a while existence and non-existence came to an end, then notknowing whether there actually was an existence or a non-existence, there’d be no point indetermining what was existence and what was non-existence. Now that I’ve already made thosestatements, I don’t know if I’ve really said anything, or haven’t said anything at all.

In the whole world there’s nothing larger than the tip of an animal’s hair, and a huge mountain issmall. Nothing has a longer life than a stillborn child, and Peng Zu (a man who lived for eighthundred years) is young.

The whole universe and I came into being together, and all living things are connected to me. Sincethere’s already this connection, what’s the use of speaking about it? Since that’s all that can be saidabout this ultimate connection, can we stop talking about it? One together with words becomes two.These two (separately) with one (the two together) becomes three. Going forward with thesecalculations, even the cleverest mathemetician couldn’t reach the end, to say nothing of ordinarypeople! Therefore, if we proceed from nothing to something and arrive at three, just imagine whatwould happen if we proceeded from something to something! Let’s not proceed. Let’s call it quits.

As for Dao, there never were distinctions. Words have never been consistent, so they definitely havelimits. I’d like to say something about those limits. There is Left; there is Right. There are personal

ethics; there are societal mandates. There is detachment; there are debates. There areconversations; there is one-up-manship. These are called the eight expressions of the heart. What’soutside the realm of this world, a wise person leaves open to doubt. What’s inside the realm of thisworld, a wise person will discuss but won’t come to definitive conclusions about any of it. About theancient records of the first kings (historical events), a wise person will come to their ownconclusions, but not get into arguments over it. Therefore, even with detachment there is non-detachment. With disagreements, there are no arguments. One might ask: “How can that be?” Awise person holds on to what he believes, whereas everybody else argues trying to make their point.That’s why it’s been said: “Those who argue can’t see past their own noses.”

Magnificent Dao makes no determinations.

Magnificent arguments use no words.

Magnificent compassion is not benevolent.

Magnificent honesty doesn’t mediate.

Magnificent courage doesn’t cause distress.

Dao that is obvious is not Dao.

Words used in arguments are futile.

Consistent compassion is unsuccessful.

Sincere honesty isn’t believed.

Courage which causes distress attains nothing.

Of these five, how many could be correctly followed?

Therefore, one who knows when to stop at what they don’t know has arrived. Knowing how toargue without words and how to follow Dao without guideposts - it would seem like having theability to really know something. That would be called self-sufficiency. Poured into, yet not filledup. Flushed out, yet not emptied. Not knowing the place from which anything arises - this would becalled preserving a bright light in the darkness.

A long time ago, Yao asked some questions of Shun (his prime minister), saying:

“I want to attack the states of Zong, Kuai and Xu Ao. Even though I’m sitting here on a thronewith so much power, I still feel uncomfortable about it. What’s causing me to feel this way?”

Shun replied:

“The rulers of those three states are still living among cottontails and mugwort (undeveloped statesand thus easily conquered). How could you not feel uncomfortable? A long time ago ten suns allcame out at once. All living things were exposed by that brightness, and now the message of yourown heart is coming through to you as brightly as those suns!”

Nie Que (Cracked and Missing Teeth) asked of Wang Ni (Master of Bewilderment):

“Do you know of anything that everyone would agree is Right?”

Ni said:

“How would I know that!”

“Do you know what you don’t know?”

“How would I know that!

“If that’s true, then doesn’t anyone know anything?”

“How would I know that! Nevertheless, I’ll try to say something about it. How can I know if what Iclaim I know to be true is rejecting the idea that there is something I might not know? How can Iknow if what I claim I don’t know to be true is rejecting the idea that there is something I do know?Now let me ask you some questions. If a person slept in a damp place, they’d get rheumatism intheir backs and walk bent over. Would it be the same for an eel? If a person lived in a tree, they’dtremble with fear and shake uncontrolably. Would it be the same for a monkey? Of those three,which knows the right place to make a home? People eat herbivorous animals. Elks and deer eatgrass and hay. Centipedes taste sweet to snakes. Hawks and crows have a taste for mice. Of thosefour, which knows what tastes best? Male monkeys find female monkeys attractive. Stags mate withdoes. Eels and fish mate in the water. Mao Qiang and Li Ji were considered beautiful by mostpeople, but when fish saw them they’d plunge deep into the water, and if birds saw them they’dsoar high up into the sky, and if deer saw them they’d gallop quickly away. Of those four, whichknows the most about feminine attractiveness? From my point of view, the principles ofbenevolence and righteousness, and the ways of Right and Wrong are enmeshed in confusion andchaos. How would I be able to tell them apart!”

Ni Que said:

“If you don’t know what’s beneficial or harmful, then a fully achieved person wouldn’t knowwhat’s beneficial or harmful either!”

Wang Ni replied:

“A fully achieved person is like a spirit! The great marshes could be set on fire, but she wouldn’tfeel hot. The rivers in China could all freeze over, but she wouldn’t feel cold. Thunder couldsuddenly echo through the mountains, wind could cause a tsunami in the ocean, but she wouldn’tbe startled. A person like that could ride through the sky on the floating clouds, straddle the sunand moon, and travel beyond the four seas. Neither death nor life can cause changes within her,and there’s little reason for her to even consider benefit or harm.”

Qu Que Zi (Mr. Startled Squawking Bird) asked of Chang Wu Zi (Mr. Full Grown Shade Tree):

“I’ve heard my Master say that a wise person is considered to be someone who doesn’t get involvedin a career. They don’t strive for profit, don’t look to avoid bankruptcy, don’t find enjoyment incompetetion, and have no reason to get involved in those things. There’s no way to describe him,and any description of him is inadequate since he travels outside the dust and dirt (troubles ofeveryday life). My Master thinks that’s a pretty hasty and impulsive way of looking at things, but Ithink it’s the way of moving with mysterious Dao. How does it seem to you, my friend?” Chang WuZi said:

“Upon hearing this, even the Yellow Emperor would be perplexed, so how could Qiu (Confucius)fully understand it! As for you, you’re getting way ahead of yourself. You see an egg and can’t waitfor it to crow. You see a crossbow and can’t wait to have a bird roasting in the oven. I’ll give yousome abstract words to savor, and you listen to them abstractly, okay?

“Trying to hold the outer edges of the sun and moon to restrain the whole universe; trying tobecome intimate with everything; trying to make sense out of what’s evasive and chaotic; trying tobe subserviently respectful to others - everybody labors at those things. A wise person is foolishlychildlike, participating in a long life because they’ve succeded at connecting with simplicity. If allliving things availed themselves of what they are, in that way they’d be beneficial to each other.

“How could I know that enjoyment of life isn’t a delusion? How could I know that a dislike of deathisn’t like a simpering fledgling who doesn’t know how to get back to his nest? Li Ji was thedaughter of the border warden Ai. On her way to the state of Jin (to become a concubine for the

king) she wept to much that she soaked the front of her dress. But when she arrived at the palace,shared with the king his luxuriuos bed, and ate the tender grain-fed meat at his table - then sheregretted ever having cried. How could I know if the dead wouldn’t repent their former craving forlife!

“One who dreams of a drunken banquet wakes up in the morning weeping and sobbing. One whodreams of weeping and sobbing wakes up in the morning and goes hunting. While they’redreaming, they don’t know they’re dreaming. In the middle of a dream they might think they’reactually a part of the dream, but when they wake up they realize it was just a dream. After one hascompletely woken up they realize it was all just a big dream. A fool believes himself to be awake,inwardly and privately actually believing he knows who he really is. Princes! Paupers! Indeed! Youand Qiu (Confucius) are both dreaming. When I call you a dreamer, I’m also a dreamer. As forwhat I’ve said, it could be called a flight of fancy. If in all the generations to come we could meet upwith someone who had such great wisdom that they knew how to explain all this, it would be likedawn and sunset occuring at the same time.

“Suppose we have an argument with each other. If you beat me instead of me beating you, are younecessarily Right and I’m Wrong? If I beat you instead of you beating me, am I necessarily Rightand you’re Wrong? Must one of us be Right, and the other Wrong? Could both of us be Right, andboth of us be Wrong? Since neither of us can come to an agreement on that, then other peoplewould be impervious to our muddled ignorance. Should we ask someone else to decide who’s Right?What if we ask someone who agrees with you? Since he already agrees with you, how can he makethe decision! What if we ask someone who agrees with me? Since he already agrees with me, howcan he make the decision! What if we ask someone who disagrees with both of us? Since he alreadydisagrees with both of us, how can he make the decision! What if we ask someone who agrees withboth of us? Since he already agrees with both of us, how can he make the decision! Since that’s so,then you and I and others wouldn’t be able to come to any agreement. Do we depend on otherpeople’s opinions? “Each changing tone of sound might be waiting for another sound toreverberate with, or it might not seem to be waiting for anything, but they’re harmonized withinthe scope of the heavens. In that way they spread out gracefully then fade away after running theircourse. What’s meant by being ‘harmonized within the scope of the heavens?’ One could say: Rightmay not be Right; So may not be So. If Right was no different from Non-Right, then there’d be noreason for arguments about what was Right and what was Non-Right. If So was no different fromNon-So, then there’d be no reason for arguments about what was So and what was Non-So. Forgetthe passage of time; forget righteousness. Vibrate with boundlessness. In that way totally dwell inboundlessness.”

The penumbra asked the shadow: “A little while ago you moved, and now you’ve stopped. A littlewhile ago you sat down, and now you’re standing up. How can you act so irrationally?”

The shadow replied:

“Do I have to depend on something else to be the way I am? Does what I depend on also have todepend on something else to be what it is? Is my dependence like a snake’s on its scales or acicada’s on its wings? How can I know why I am so? How can I know why I am not otherwise?”

(Note: Penumbra: A space of partial illumination [as in an eclipse] between the perfect shadow onall sides and the full light. The luminous outline around a shadow.)

A while ago I, Zhuang Zhou (Zhuangzi), dreamed I was a butterfly. Happily absorbed in being abutterfly, I was thrilled to fly around and do what butterflies do. I didn’t even know I was Zhou.When I woke up, I suddenly found that I was Zhou. I didn’t know if I was Zhou dreaming I was abutterfly, or if I was a butterfly dreaming I was Zhou. There must be something that separatesZhou from the butterfly. It’s called metamorphosis.

The Inner Chapter Three:

Opinions on Nurturing Life

There are limits in our lives, but there are no limits to knowledge. Using what’s limited to try tocatch up with what’s unlimited can only bring trouble. Someone who already thinks they’reknowledgable is really in trouble.

Acting with kindness doesn’t necessarily bring warm responses. Acting badly doesn’t necessarilybring punishment. If you sort through for the strongest points fate has provided to you and set yourcourse by them, then your body can be protected, your life can be perfected, your loved ones can besupported, and you can live out your natural life span.

Cook Ding was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen Hui (Kind Gentle Official). With his hands in place,his shoulders hunched, his foot thrust forward, and his knee bent - every slice of meat fell in frontof him as his knife seemed to hum a melody. With a steady rhythm, it didn’t miss a beat. It wasequal to the dancing performed to the music of “The Mulberry Grove,” and as skillful as themusicians playing “The Jing Shou.”

Lord Wen Hui said:

“Oh, excellent! How did you come up with such a perfect technique?”

Cook Ding set down his knife and replied:

“Your servant is fond of Dao, which advances techniques. At the time when I first began as abutcher, all I could see was a whole ox. Three years later, I no longer saw the ox as a whole.Nowadays, I sense with my spirit instead of looking with my eye. My brain knows when to stop andlet my spirit take over. Following the natural grain, noting the large gaps between the cartilage andobserving the huge hollows - they already provide me with a map. When I come upon places wheremuscle and bone connect, that’s the only time I need to be forceful! A good cook changes his knifeevery year because he cuts. An ordinary cook changes his knife every month because he hacks. I’vehad my knife for nineteen years, and I’ve butchered over a thousand oxen. It’s as sharp now as itwas when it was first honed. Each section of the ox has a gap, and the edge of my knife is narrowerthan that opening. Those are the gaps where I thrust my narrow blade. So wide are those placeswhere I place my knife that there’s lots of leeway. That’s why I’ve had this knife for nineteen yearsand it’s still like new. Nevertheless, every time I come to a dense spot, I look for its difficulties. Iproceed with caution and keep my guard up, considering when I should stop and when I shouldmove slowly. I move the knife just a little bit and that part is quickly separated, like a clump of dirt

shifitng on the ground. Then I lift up my knife and stand up straight, pausing to look at at all mywork until I’m satisfied with it. Then I properly clean my knife and stow it away.”

Lord Wen Hui said:

“Excellent! What I’ve gotten from your words is how to nourish life.”

When Gong Wen Xuan (Official Concealed Chariot) saw the Teacher of the Right, he was startledand said:

“Who is that guy? Why is he so removed from the rest of us? Is he more related to the heavens, oris he more related to people?”

“To the heavens, not to people. The life the heavens has given him is what makes him appear soisolated. Most people try to act in ways that bring them approval from other people. He prefers tohave understanding of the heavens, not of people.

“A marsh pheasant will take ten steps to get one peck of food; a hundred steps to get one drink ofwater. It wouldn’t stay in a cage if it was given unlimited amounts of food and water. If it wastreated like a god or a king, that would be bad for it.”

When Lao Dan (Lao Zi) died, Qin Shi mourned for him by uttering three howls and leaving.

A disciple asked:

“Weren’t you a friend of the Master?”

“Yes, I was.”

“If that’s so, then can you really be comfortable mourning in this way?”

“Yes, I can. At first I thought of him as a man, but now I don’t. When I went in to mourn, therewere a lot of old people crying - as though they were crying for the loss of their own children. A fewof them cried as though they were crying for the loss of their own mothers. Each of them, therefore,who came to assemble here wanted not to be alone while saying their words; not to be alone whilecrying their tears. By trying to escape their many natural emotions, they’ve forgotten they canendure their suffering. The ancients called this trying to escape natural torment. When it wasappropriate for him to come, the Master took that opportunity. When it was appropriate for him toleave, the Master submitted. By peacefully accepting the opportunity and later comfortablysubmitting, sorrow and happiness don’t enter the picture. In ancient times this was calleddismissing the ruler from his earthly responsibilities.”

If you keep pointing at stuff you’ll become like firewood. The flame will keep burning you up andyou won’t know when it’ll stop.

The Inner Chapter Four:

Relating to the Human World

Yan Hui (a disciple of Confucius) went to see Zhong Ni (Confucius) and asked his permission totake a hiatus.

“Where are you going?”

“To the state of Wei.”

“What for?

Hui replied:

“The news reports that the prince of Wei is acting like a spoiled brat. He’s taking advantage of hisposition and can’t see the mistakes he’s making. He thinks nothing at all of his people dying, andtheir bodies litter the countryside like weeds in a swamp. The people can’t do anything about it. Iremember something you once said, Master: ‘If a country is in order, leave it. If a country is inturmoil, go to it.’ The doctor’s offices are filled with sick people. If you can share with me yourthoughts about this, I’d like to come up with a way to reform all or at least some of what’s going onthere.”

Zhong Ni said:

“Ha, ha! It seems dangerous to go there just to get your ear chopped off! The Way isn’t aboutwanting to fit all the pieces together. Try to fit all the pieces together, and you’ll just find morepieces lying around. The more they multiply, the more upset you’ll get. When you’re upset you’ll beworried and sad. With so much worrying, then there’s no way to help anyone. Before the ideals ofsociety took over, an achieved person worked first on getting all the parts within himself attunedbefore trying to attune all the parts in others. If there’s still something not dealt with in yourself,how would you have the time to go around trying to fix the cruelty of others! In addition, do youknow how virtue is wasted and how knowledge is expressed? Virtue is wasted on trying to becomefamous, and knowledge is expressed in disputes. One who tries to become famous steps on others,and one who wants to show off their knowledge uses it as a weapon in debates. Both of those areterrible methods, and neither will get you anywhere. If you already think you have substantialvirtue and solid beliefs, you haven’t even begun to consider the essence of other people. If you can

give up on competing for fame, then you wouldn’t be trying to take over a precious place in otherpeople’s hearts. Being chastized by having rules and regulations about benevolence andrighteousness pointed out is the type of violent method that people have already had to deal with,but if you show the evilness in that then you’d just appear to be trying to make yourself look betterthan they are. Then your approach would be like calling people weeds which needed to be sortedthrough. If you sort through people like that, people will revolt against it. It seems pretty dangerousto approach people like that.

“Besides, the prince might not have any preference for those who are worthy, nor may he hatethose who are unworthy. What would be the use in asking him to change his ways? If you spend toomuch time pondering over how to instruct him, the prince would inevitably take advantage of yourlack of preparedness. Then your eyes would start to burn, your expression would go dumb, yourmouth would drop open, your shape would go limp, and your mind for the time being would take ineverything he said. This would be like using fire to fight fire or using water to try to stop a flood.Then you’d just be increasing what was already there. Start out that way and it’d never end. Onthe other hand, if you gave a hint that you didn’t believe in the profound words he was saying, thatwould put you in serious trouble, and you’d probably end up being killed right there in front ofsuch a violent person!

“Keep in mind that Jie (a tyrant) killed Guan Long Feng (his minister), and Zhou (a tyrant) killedPrince Bi Gan (his minister). Everyone had warned those ministers ahead of time that they shouldremain subserviant and not raise a ruckus, but they let the rulers push them down so low that therulers thought nothing of squashing them. They were that desperate to keep their titles.

“As for some other ancient rulers - Yao attacked the states of Cong, Zhi and Xu Ao; Yu attackedYou Hu. Those states were laid to waste, bodies were tortured and killed, their warfare continued,and yet there was no end to their thirst for material gain. Haven’t you heard of their obsession withfame and posessions? The desire to become rich and famous is something even a wise personcouldn’t overcome, much less you!

“Okay, since you must have had something in mind to begin with, give me the gist of it.”

Yan Hui said:

“What if I were to remain level-headed and open, devoting serious effort and being single-mindedin my purpose? How about that?”

“Huh? What are you thinking? That man (the prince) creatively puts on a showy display ofgreatness, but you can’t be sure from all those theatrics what’s really in his spirit. Ordinary peoplewon’t disobey him because he makes mandates on their feelings and controls what’s in their hearts.A person like that is gradually diminishing their own virtue, while having a strong belief theirvirtue is great! He’ll hold on to that belief and refuse to change, shutting himself off from anyadvice coming from others while not finding anything to criticize within himself. How could he findany use for you!”

“Okay then. I could keep centered within myself, but be so adaptable on the outside that I’d appearto be like him. Keeping what I know to be right to myself, I could follow on the tails of the actions ofthe heavens. Since I’d simply be following the actions of the heavens, I know the emperor wouldlook on me like a child of the heavens. Then how could my words be taken as seeking approvalfrom others or seeking their disapproval? Being this way, people would call me childish, as though Iwas merely a follower of the heavens. Being adaptable on the outside, I’d simply be a follower of thepeople. Offering sacrifices, kneeling in submission, bowing down, and beating my chest with my fist- these are the rituals performed by respectful people. All people do that, so why would I dare to actotherwise? By conducting myself in this way, people wouldn’t be able to find fault with me, and inthat way I’d be seen as a follower of the people. Being successful at appearing to be like him (theprince), I would thus be seen as a follower of the respected ancients. My words would echo whatthey taught and be substantial for that reason. I’d be citing what the ancients believed, not what Imyself believe. In that way I’d be echoing what’s true and correct, not acting from my own self-interest. If I’m just citing what the ancients said in the past, then would that do?”

Zhong Ni replied:

“Huh? What are you thinking? For the most part you’re right, although your methods are a littleshaky, but you’d manage to get away without being accused of any crime. Even though someonemight stop and listen to you, how would that really get anyone to make any drastic changes! You’dstill sound a bit like a preacher.”

Yan Hui said:

“I don’t know what else to try. I’m asking for your suggestions.”

Zhong Ni replied:

“Go on a fast, then I’ll tell you what I think. Do you think it’s easy to come up with a plan ofaction? If you think it’s easy, then you’re not in tune with the heavens.”

Yan Hui said:

“My household is poor. I don’t remember having a drink of wine or a bite of meat in severalmonths. Can that be considered fasting?”

“That’s the kind of fasting one does for religious rituals, not the fasting of the heart/mind.”

Hui asked:

“Can I ask what’s the fasting of the heart/mind?”

Zhong Ni replied:

“Unify your frame of mind. Give up listening with your ears, but listen with your heart. Give uplistening with your heart, but listen with the vital essence of your spirit! Listening stops at the ears.The heart stops at making calculations. In the essence of the spirit is openness that’s waiting toreceive all things. Pondering Dao accumulates more openness. In that openness is the fasting of theheart.”

Yan Hui said:

“I haven’t yet gotten a grip on just what I’m supposed to be doing, or who I really am. If I’ve gottento the point of having no sense of who I am, would that be called openness?”

The Master said:

“You’ve got it. Now we’re speaking the same language! You can go about traveling in his realm andnot be affected by fame. If you make any headway, then speak naturally. If you don’t makeheadway, then stop. With no need to physically or mentally escape the situation, realizing that allenvironments are the same and you have no alternative than to be where you are, then you’dalmost be done. To walk without leaving tracks is easy, but it’s difficlut to walk without touchingthe ground. It’s easy to be a fake if you’re trying to act like everyone else, but it’s difficult to be afake if your actions arise naturally. We’ve all heard about things that have wings and can fly. Wehaven’t heard about things that don’t have wings and can fly. We’ve all heard about people whoare smart that are considered to be knowledgable. We haven’t heard about those who are ignorantthat are considered to be knowledgable.

“Look for each of the places where there’s a blockage. An empty room lets in the most brightness.It’s good fortune to stop, stop. Someone who can’t find a moment to stop - that’s called sitting at agallop (body still; mind racing). To allow what you see and hear free access to come inside, but tokeep your mind and knowledge out of it - supernatural beings would be drawn to that place andeven more so would human beings. This is the way all living things adapt. That’s the position takenby Yu and Shun, and the path taken by Fu Xi and Ji Qu to the end. How much more scattered mostpeople allow themselves to get!”

When Zi Gao (the Duke of She in the state of Chu) was about to depart on a mission to the state ofQi, he asked Zhong Ni (Confucius):

“This is a really important bridge the king is sending me to build (between our nations), and Qi iswaiting for me as an emissary. I must show the utmost respect and not be impatient. Even ordinarypeople can’t be pushed to do something, let alone princes and dukes! I’m really scared. Master, youonce told me this about bridging the gap of different cultures: ‘Dealing with ordinary affairs canappear small or large. Few who don’t follow Dao will enjoy success. If affairs are unsuccessful, thenit would certainly bring a series of troubles from the way people would react. If affairs aresuccessful, then it would certainly upset the balance of nature. To evade trouble whether there’ssuccess or failure - only someone with virtue can do that.’ I eat whatever is handy, have no skill atcooking, and so my kitchen doesn’t get overheated. This morning I received my instructions, and bythe evening I was drinking ice water to cool off - I’m feeling so hot inside! I haven’t even found outthe details of what I’m supposed to do yet, but I’m already feeling like my nature is topsy-turvy. IfI’m not successful in this mission, certainly I’ll have a series of troubles from the way people willreact. I’m already getting the worst of it in both ways. As a minister of the state, I’m completelyinadequate for this task. Master, do you have any words of advice?”

Zhong Ni said:

“There are two universal mandates in this world. One of them is fate and the other is duty. Achild’s love for their parents is fated, and it can’t be driven from their heart. A subject’s service tohis ruler is duty, because if he didn’t follow along and tried to oppose the ruler, there’d be no placein the whole world he could escape. These are called universal mandates. To be of service to yourparents, despite their position, and to be comfortable with that is the utmost in filial piety. To be ofservice to your ruler, despite the tasks requested of you, and to be comfortable with that is the mostcomplete loyalty. To be of service to your own heart, despite the fact that joy or sorrow haveovercome you and realizing that they are part of fate and that neither of them will last for long, isthe attainment of virtue. One who acts as a subject or child to others would certainly not be out toget anything for themselves. Being so involved in the needs of others and forgetting about oneself,when would there be any spare time for thinking about whether you’re enjoying life and dreadingdeath! My dear friend, that’s the way to proceed!

“Please let me tell you something I heard: Ordinarily those in intimate relationships must blendwith each other’s beliefs. If they’re physically apart from each other then they must use words toexpress their friendship, and those words usually have to be passed on by someone. To pass onwords that might express the delight or the anger of one of the parties is the most diffucult thing inthe world to do. To properly express joyful tidings requires exaggerated compliments. Passing onangry words requires much venom. Ordinarily these exaggerations can get pretty ridiculous. Ifthey’re ridiculous enough then no one would believe they’re true, and the messenger would bedoomed. Therefore, it’s said in the Fa Yan (”Book of Rules”): ‘Pass on what has been actually said,not with exaggerated words, then most likely you’ll remain whole (not suffer amputation or death).’

“Another thing to remember: A skillful and strong fighter (martial artist) starts out openly showinghis moves then will usually end up being more deceptive. The longer the fight lasts, the moreunexpected moves he uses. One who’s at a party drinking liquor starts out in control of himselfthen will usually end up getting out of control. The more they drink, the more they laugh likelunatics. Ordinary affairs are much the same. What begins with sincerity often ends up in rudeness.They begin simply enough, but they usually eventually become much more complex. One whospeaks can cause a stormy sea (disturbance), and one who acts on it can lose sight of reality.Disturbances can easily cause one to take actions. Losing sight of reality can easily cause one to bein danger. Therefore, anger can arise for no apparent reason other than as a reaction to harsh andbiased words.

“An animal doesn’t choose which sound to make when it dies. Its last exhalation is so suddenlyexpelled that feelings of terror arise in both the hunter and the hunted. If you push someone toomuch, then they won’t respond from their heart, and not even know they’re doing that. If theydon’t even know they’re doing that, who knows where it’ll end up? Therefore, it’s said in the FaYan: ‘Without making demands; without pushing for success - that’s when the most beneficialoutcome will result.’ Making demands and pushing for success would be dangerous in this matter.A fine settlement takes time. A bad settlement is irreparable. You can’t be too cautious!

“For the time being let things ride and follow your heart. Figure that you probably won’tnecessarily get fulfillment yourself, but look for what would appease both sides. Then you’ll knowyou’ve finished with it. How would you be affected by reporting back what happened on themission? Nothing other than the fact that what happened was caused by destiny. You’re the onewho makes it more difficult than that.”

Yan He (a scholar from the state of Lu) was about to become tutor of the eldest son of Duke Ling inthe state of Wei, so he asked of Qu Bo Yu (a minister of the state of Wei):

“This is a man whose natural disposition is to kill. If I allow him to proceed without suggesting abetter method, then that would be dangerous to my state. If I insist on showing him a bettermethod, then that would be dangerous to my own well-being. He’s smart enough to recognize otherpeople’s faults, but not smart enough to recognize his own faults. In a situation like this, what can Ido?”

Qi Bo Yu responded:

“Good question! Be on guard, be cautious, and get your own motivations in order! As to your outerappearance, there’s nothing better than compliance. As to your inner feelings, there’s nothingbetter than peacefulness. Even if you do all that, there are still a couple of things you have to becareful about. Just because you’re comforming on the outside, don’t let that affect what’s in yourheart. Just because you’re feeling peaceful inside, don’t let that affect how you act on the outside. Ifyou get so involved in conforming to what’s around you that you let it affect your heart, you’ll loseyour balance, your blood will run cold, you’ll fall apart, and you’ll lose consciousness. If you get soinvolved in the peace within your heart that you show it on the outside, you’ll hear everything asthough it was music to your ears, seek fame, act seductively, and become a spoiled brat.

“If the prince acts like an innocent child, then you also act like an innocent child with him. If hestarts exploring ways to overcome his limits, then you also act like you’re exploring ways toovercome limits. If he acts without being concerned for his own safety, then you also act withoutconcern for your own safety. If you get to that point, you can reach into the place within him that’swithout faults.

“Haven’t you heard the story of the praying mantis? It got so mad that it stretched out its armtrying to stop a speeding car. It didn’t know that it didn’t have the ability to do that, but got carriedaway with thinking it could be good at doing anything. Be on guard, be cautious! One who thinksthey’re good at tearing down what has already built up momentum will be offensive, and will sooncome to an end.

“Haven’t you heard the story of the guy who raised and tamed tigers? He didn’t dare give themliving animals for food, since by killing them their viciousness would increase. He didn’t dare givethem whole carcasses of animals, since by tearing them apart their viciousness would increase. Bydetermining the times when they’d be hungry or full, he could keep the violence in their heartscalmed down. Tigers are a different species than people, and they have to be coaxed by their trainerin order to become docile. Therefore, what was once a killer can be turned into the opposite.

“There was a man who loved his horse. He filled up baskets with its excrement, and filled up largeshells with its urine. A mosquito or horsefly landed near the horse’s tail, and the guy tried to slap itaway. The horse was startled by the slap on his rump and pulled on its bit, thus smashing the guy’shead to the ground and crushing his chest with its hoof. If paying attention to something gets tooextreme, then love gets lost. Isn’t there always a reason for caution?”

A master carpenter named Shi (Stone Face), on his way to the state of Qi, arrived at the town of QuYuan where he saw an oak tree that served as a local shrine. It was so big that an ox standingbehind it wouldn’t be visible, and it measured a hundred spans around. It was as tall as themountains in the background. Its branches extended out for eighty feet, and at least ten of thebranches were large enough to be used to build the side of a boat. Sightseers were packed togetheras if in a marketplace. The distinguished carpenter paid it no mind and just kept going withoutpausing. When his assistant had his fill of gazing at it, he ran to catch up with carpenter Shi andsaid:

“I’ve been carrying this heavy axe around and following you, Master, and we haven’t yet seen suchgreat building material until now. Why, sir, were you not even willing to look at it, but just keptwalking on?”

“Stop it! Don’t say another word! The wood of that tree is defective. Use it to make a boat, and itwould sink. Use it to make coffins, and they’d quickly rot. Use it to make tools, and they’d quicklyfall apart. Use it to make any kind of door and the knotholes would let in moisture. Use it to make afence post and it’d be infested with worms. That wood isn’t good for anything, and is completelyuseless. That’s why it’s been able to grow so old.”

When carpenter Shi returned home, the oak used as a shrine appeared to him in a dream and said:

“With what else would you choose to compare me? Would you compare me with trees that haveintricately fine grains? Or with the peach, pear, tangerine, grapefruit - on which the fruit hangdown like gourds? When their fruit ripens, they’re stripped and left naked. The large branches arebroken, and the small branches are torn to shreds. They have a painful life, and thus they don’t liveout their natural life span but come to a premature end in the middle of their time. Just by thenature of what they are they’re open to the assaults of the vulgar world. Of living things, nothingseems to escape that. I’d been trying to find out how to be useless for a long time, and although Ialmost died, now I’ve figured it out, and it’s been a big help to me. If I’d made myself to be of anyuse whatsoever, how could I have managed to grow this huge? Since you and I are connected justlike everything else, what’s the point in estimating something by its appearance? Yet a defectiveperson like you who’s nearly dead has the nerve to point out defects in a tree?”

Carpenter Shi woke up and related the story in his dream. His assistant asked:

“If it was so intent on being useless, then why does it continue to be a shrine?”

“Shush! Don’t say another word! It’s only resting there. By acting like it doesn’t know what it is,any cruelty toward it is averted. If it didn’t allow itself to be treated like a shrine, there’d be manywho’d want to chop it down! It provides a place where many different kinds of people can feelprotected, but if it was judged by how it could be used in a more conventional way, it wouldn’t havegotten this far!”

When Nan Bo Zi Qi (Exalted Count of Southern Darkness) was traveling in the hills of Shang (BusyMetropolis), he saw a large and unusual tree. A group of a thousand chariots could be hidden underthe cover of its shade.

Zi Qi said:

“What kind of tree is this? It must be very strange timber!”

He turned his face up and looked at its thin branches which were so bent and twisted that theycouldn’t be used as rafters and beams. He bent down and looked at the tree’s roots which were sognarled and knotty that they couldn’t be used to make coffins. He touched one of the leaves to histongue, and it stung his mouth and left a sore. He smelled it then became like a mad man and had ahangover for more than three days.

Zi Qi said:

“This tree really is incapable of providing anything useful. That’s how it’s been able to grow solarge. Aha! A holy person would be just as incapable!”

In the state of Song there’s an area called Jing Shi, where there are catalpas, cypress and mulberrytrees. Those trees that have grown so large that you can’t get both hands around their trunks arecut down by people who want to make posts to tie up their monkeys. Those that are three or fourspans around are chopped down by people to make decorations for their palatial homes. Thoseseven or eight spans around are chopped down by officials and rich merchants to make sides fortheir family altars. Therefore, they don’t live out their natural life span, but come to a premature

end by the use of axes and hatchets in the middle of their growth. That’s the trouble with havingmaterial value.

Therefore, when preparing for a sacrificial offering, oxen with white foreheads, pigs with turned upsnouts, and people who are suffering from diarrhea can’t be used in the River Sacrifices. This issomething all respected shamans know about, as it’s considered to bring bad luck. On the otherhand, these are the things a holy man considers to be very lucky.

There was a deformed man called Shu (Dislocated). His chin was hidden in his bellybutton, hisshoulders were higher than the top of his head, the top of his spine was like a finger pointing to thesky, his five vital organs protruded to the outside, and both of his thigh bones were forced up nextto his ribs. By mending and washing clothes he was able to make enough to feed himself. By beatingthe husk off rice and sorting it, he was able to make enough to feed ten people. When the emperorsent out officials to round up an army from the civilian population, he was excused when heexposed his deformed body. When the emperor sent out officials to round up a group of laborers,he was excused because he constantly got sick and didn’t have any stamina. When the emperor sentout officials to distribute food to the ill and sickly, he received three times as much as anyone else aswell as ten bundles of firewood. If a person who’s been denied a normally formed body from birthcan still find a way to feed himself and live out his natural life span, then so too should someonewho’s been denied Virtue!

When Kong Zi (Confucius) traveled to the state of Chu, Jie Yu (Car Accident Victim), the madmanof Chu, walked up to his outer gate and said:

“Phoenix! Phoenix! (a bird of good omen) How much Virtue has declined! We can’t wait for thefuture to sort it out, and we can’t chase after the past. When the world has Dao, Sages rest on theirlaurels. When the world doesn’t have Dao, Sages come to life. In this day and age, one can onlyexpect to escape punishment. Good fortune is as light as a feather, but no one knows how to carryit. Misfortune is as heavy as dirt, but no one knows how to avoid it. Stop! Stop evaluating people bytheir Virtue! Danger! It’s dangerous to draw a line in the sand and rush over to your side!Enchanted by the light. So enchanted by the light it’s a wonder we haven’t harmed our paths. Myown path may seem distastefully crooked, but at least I haven’t harmed my feet!”

By their own nature, mountain trees are cut down. By its own nature, cooking oil is used up in afrying pan. A cinnamon tree is edible, so it’s cut down. Varnish is useful, so the trees that produce itare tapped.

Everyone knows the usefulness of the useful, but no one knows the usefulness of the useless.

The Inner Chapter Five:

Calculations on Filfilling Virtue

In the state of Lu there’s a person named Wang Tai (Great Lame Horse) who lost one of his feet.He has throngs of followers, about the same number as Zhong Ni (Confucius).

Chang Ji (Ordinary Younger Brother) asked Zhong Ni:

“Wang Tai, who has lost a foot (by amputation as punishment for a crime), has as many followersas you do, Master, throughout the state of Lu. When he stands up he doesn’t preach, and when hesits down he doesn’t carry on discussions. Those who go to him empty return fulfilled. How cansomeone who’s unconcerned with teaching with words and has a mutilated body still have acompleted heart? What kind of person is he?”

Zhong Ni said:

“This Master is a Sage. I’m always so behind the times that I haven’t had a chance yet to go andlisten to him. I’ll go learn from him, and surely those who aren’t the least bit like me would do thesame. Why should it be limited to the state of Lu? I’ll attract the whole world to follow him.”

Chang Ji said:

“That guy’s missing a foot, yet he’s a respected teacher, which makes him quite extraordinary.How can a person like that remain so single-hearted?”

Zhong Ni said:

“Much is made of death and life, but they don’t affect him. Even if heaven and earth were tocrumble and fall, not even that would shake him up. He can examine carefully what’s flawless, yetnot be persuaded to follow what others do. His fate is different from other things, yet he guardswhat they put stock in.”

Chang Ji asked:

“What do you mean by that?”

Zhong Ni said:

“If you look at things from the point of view of their differences, then the liver and gall bladder areas far apart as the states of Chu and Yue. If you look at things from the point of view of theirsimilarities, then all living things share a unity. At that point, such a person not only doesn’tevaluate things with his ears and eyes, but lets his heart and mind float with the harmony of hisown nature. He looks at the unity of things, and doesn’t look for what they’re lacking. He regardslosing his foot as though he was shaking off a clump of mud.”

Chang Ji said:

By losing his own sense of separateness, he’s able to achieve an understanding of his heart, and usehis heart to achieve a sense of durability in his heart. Why do others want to be sheltered by him?”

Zhong Ni replied:

“There’s no way for people to see their reflections in running water, but they can see theirreflections in still water. Multitudes of people can only be stilled by staying still. Complying withwhat was fated from the earth, only the pine and cypress could remain on their own course -staying green in both summer and winter. Complying with what was fated by the heavens, only Yaoand Shun could remain true to their own course - being able to lead all living things. If one is luckythey can realize their true course has been set from birth, as everyone’s true course has been setfrom birth. Feeling secure from danger at the beginning of his journey, not fearing what willhappen to him, one brave soldier would feel powerful enough to penetrate nine armies. The onlygoal that kind of person has in mind is seeking to make a name for himself. Suppose someone settheir mind to being controled by both the heavens and the earth, to being compensated by all livingthings, to align all the limbs of their body, to observe clearly using their eyes and ears, to know theunity of their awareness, and to never allow their mind to deteriorate! That kind of person wouldjust get up and leave one day, and if people followed after him, what would he care about whatanyone else was doing?”

Shen Tu Jia (Admired Straightforward Student), who’d lost a foot (as punishment for havingcommitted a crime), and Zi Chan of Zheng (Prime Minister of Zheng) both had Bo Hun Wu Ren(Professor Confused Nonentity) as their teacher.

Zi Chan said to Shen Tu Jia:

“If I leave first, then you wait and go later. If you leave first, then I’ll wait and go later.”

The next day both of them were again sitting on the same mat in the hall.

Zi Chan said to Shen Tu Jia:

“If I leave first, then you wait and go later. If you leave first, then I’ll wait and go later. Now I’mabout to leave, so can you wait a while? Why would you refuse? When you come across a PrimeMinister and don’t obey him, is that because you think you’re equal to him?”

Shen Tu Jia said:

“Can there be a Prime Minister as rude as this within my teacher’s gates? You think simplybecause you’ve been appointed Prime Minister that other people should cater to you? There’s awell-known saying: ‘If a mirror is bright, then no dust has settled on it. If dust has settled, then it’snot bright. Spend a lot of time with someone who’s upright, and you’ll be faultless.’ Now, you’vecome to seek guidance from our great Master, but you’re still able to speak like you did. Who’sreally the guilty person here?”

Zi Chan said:

“You’ve already gotten yourself into this situation (losing a foot), yet you still think you couldcompete with Yao as to which of you is better. Why don’t you take a cold hard look at yourself andsee if you can come up with anything virtuous there at all?”Shen Tu Jia said:

“There are lots of people who have the appearance of having committed a crime even though theyweren’t guilty. There are some people who don’t have the appearance of committting a crime eventhough they were guilty. To realize that certain things can’t be changed and quietly accept destiny,only a person with a clear heart can do that. One might wander into the middle of a field where Yiis practicing archery. If they’re standing there right out in the open and still don’t get hit by thearrow, that’s destiny. When someone who has both feet laughs at me because I don’t have as manyfeet as they have, I get angry and go into a rage. But when I come to visit my teacher, then I calmdown and change my attitude. How can I know if my master’s bathed me in goodness, or if I’ve justsettled down peacefully on my own? I’ve been following my Master for nineteen years, and he stillhasn’t acknowledged the fact that I’ve lost a foot. Now you and I are connected by something muchdeeper than how many appendages we each have, but you keep trying to separate us by excludingme due to my outer appearance. Who’s really the guilty person here?”

Zi Chan, taken aback, changed his attitude and took on a new demeanor, saying:

“You don’t have to say another word.”

In the state of Lu there’s a mutilated man named Shu Shan the Toeless. Walking on his heels, hecame to see Zhong Ni (Confucius).

Zhong Ni said:

“You weren’t careful in the first place, and by committing crimes you brought this disaster onyourself. What’s the point of coming to see me now!”

Toeless said:

“It was only because I didn’t understand what I was supposed to be doing and took my body lightlythat I lost part of my feet. Now I come here showing as much respect as someone who has feet,striving to keep what I have remaining of my body whole. There’s nothing the heavens doesn’tcover with a protective shield. There’s nothing the earth doesn’t bear the burden of. I thought youwere a Master of the heavens and earth. Where’s your knowledge, Master, that you could treat methis way!”

Kong Zi (Confucius) said:

“That was really narrow-minded of me. Sir, why don’t you come on in? Please allow me to explainto you what I have to share.”

Toeless left.

Kong Zi said to his attentive disciples:

“That man was mutilated by having his toes chopped off, but he still wants to take on the task oflooking back and learning from his previous mistakes. How much more so should those who thinkthey have perfect Virtue!”

Toeless told this story to Lao Dan (Laozi) and then said:

“I thought Kong was a perfected person, but he’s not there yet, is he? Why do so many discipleskeep treating him as though he were a respected guest? He’s seeking to become famous by beingconsidered extraordinary and unusual. Doesn’t he know that a perfected person would view beingtreated that way as being shackled?”

Lao Dan said:

“Why not straighten him out by showing him how life and death are linked on a single branch, andhow approval and disapproval are linked on a single thread? That would release him from hisshackles, wouldn’t it?”

Toeless said:

“Since he thinks his punishment is coming from the heavens, how could he possibly be released!”

Duke Ai of the state of Lu asked Zhong Ni (Confucius):

“There was an ugly man in the state of Wei named Ai Tai Ta (Sad-Looking Horse Face). The adultmen who hung out with him thought so highly of him that they couldn’t leave his presence. Whenunmarried women saw him, they’d beg their parents: ‘I’d rather be that man’s concubine than thewife of a well-to-do gentleman.’ That happened dozens of times and keeps happening over and over.He’s never been known to speak out for himself, but always blends harmoniously with other peopleand that’s all. He’s never been in a position of authority that would allow him to save anyone fromdeath, nor does he earn the kind of money that would allow him to support anyone. Besides that,he’s probably the ugliest person in the whole world. He blended with others but didn’t speak outfor himself, and he didn’t know anything other than what went on in his immediate environment,

yet males and females both found him compelling. This guy must have some very unusual qualities.I demanded that he come to me so I could have a look at him, and determined that he surely mustbe the ugliest person in the world. I also demanded that he stay with me for a month so I could get abetter idea of what kind of person he was. He’s been here for almost a year, and I’ve come to trusthim completely. As my state is without a Prime Minister, I offered him the job. He looked indecisiveabout how to respond, as though he was looking for a reason to decline. I was so embarrassed that Iimmediately turned over the position to him. Without even saying goodbye to me, he left. I wasreally sorry to lose him, as though there was nothing else that could bring me pleasure any more inthe whole country. What sort of person was he?”

Zhong Ni said:

“I was once on a mission to the state of Chu, and along the way I saw some young piglets nursing ontheir dead mother. In a short time they all withdrew from her and went away. They no longer sawher as resembling themselves, nor did she seem to be similar to them in any way. The love they hadfor their mother wasn’t based merely on loving her physical form, but a love of what her physicalform could provide. When a soldier dies in battle, they have no need for a fancy coffin or funeral.When a person has lost their feet, they have no reason to love shoes. In all the instances mentionedabove, something they once placed a lot of importance on had vanished.

“Those who’ve passed the requirements to become the Emperor’s assistants no longer need to filetheir nails or pierce their ears (make themselves outwardly attractive in order to gain prominence).A man who’s acquired a wife no longer needs to adorn his outer appearance nor seek a higherposition (make themselves more attractive in order to get a wife). Their outer form was alreadysufficient enough to gain them acceptance. How much more so would that be for someone who’dperfected their virtue! Now Ai Tai Ta didn’t need to say a word, but you completely trusted him.He didn’t show any achievements, but you wanted to keep him close to you. You wanted to give himyour entire country, and you were afraid he wouldn’t take the offer. He must have a great ability tobe complete, even though his virtue wasn’t apparent in his outer form.”

Duke Ai asked:

“What do you mean by a great ability to be complete?”

Zhong Ni said:

“Death and life, accumulation and loss, failure and success, poverty and wealth, worth andworthlessness, praise and blame, hunger and thirst, hot and cold - those simply reflect howsituations can change and are ordered by destiny. Day and night follow each other and precedeeach other, but human knowledge is incapable of regulating them. Since there’s no way to basepersonal harmony on something so unpredictable, it shouldn’t have the ability to affect thestorehouse of one’s spiritual powers. Participate in what really causes harmony - connect with itand don’t lose the joyfulness that comes from it. Do this whether it’s day or night, and experienceeternal springtime with every living thing. Welcome every moment with the fullness of your heart.That’s called having a great ability to be complete.”

“What’s meant by having a virtue that isn’t apparent by one’s outer form?”

“When water has reached its full capacity, it becomes level and still. It can be a great example, as itprotects what’s within and allows evaporation of what’s on the surface. When virtue has succeededin creating harmony, it’s displayed like a decoration. When virtue isn’t apparent from one’s outerform, no living thing would be able to be separated from it.”

On another day, Duke Ai explained this story to Min Zi (one of Confucius’ disciples):

“I used to sit on my throne facing South (the direction a ruler’s throne faced) and ruled the wholeworld. I held in my hands the ability to determine the course of people’s lives, and grieved at theirdeaths. I considered myself to be one who had attained expertise in everything. Now that I’ve heardthe words of a true expert, I’m afraid I have no substance whatsoever, have taken too lightly theappearance my body gave off, and thus could lose my country. Kong (Confucius) and I don’t relateto each other like ruler and servant - we’re merely friends who share virtue.”

A man with a club foot, a stooped posture, and who had no lips explained his theories to Duke Lingof Wei. Duke Ling was so won over by the guy that he thought anyone who would be considered tohave a perfect form would have to have the same neck and shoulders as him. A man with a goiteron his neck as big as a huge jar explained his theories to Duke Huan of Qi. Duke Huan was so wonover by the guy that he thought anyone who would be considered to have a perfect form would haveto have the same neck and shoulders as him. Therefore, when virtue is predominant, a person’sphysical form is forgotten. If people remember what was forgotten, and then forget what wasremembered - that can be called true forgetting.

Therefore, a wise person goes wandering and sees that knowledge promotes misfortune, promisespromote bondage, virtue promotes intimacy, work promotes business. A wise person doesn’tscheme, so what use is there for knowledge? Doesn’t chop things apart, so what use is there forbonding? Is without alienation, so what use is there for virtue? Doesn’t barter, so what use is therefor business? These four are the gruel (meager provisions) provided by the heavens. One who hasthe gruel of the heavens is nourished by the heavens. Since she receives this nourishment from theheavens, why would she need to use people? She has a human form but is without humansentimentality. She has a human form, therefore she’s classified as a person. She’s without humansentimentality, therefore judgments about right and wrong can’t affect her. Insignificant and small- that’s the way she’s classified by humanity. Large and great - her single accomplishment is withthe heavens.

Hui Zi said to Zhuangzi:

“Are there humans without sentimentality?”

Zhuangzi replied:

“There are.”

Hui Zi said:

“If a person has no sentimentality, how could they be called a person?”

Zhuangzi replied:

“Dao gives him his demeanor, the heavens give him a physical shape, so how could he not be calleda person?”

Hui Zi said:

“Since it’s already been determined he’s a person, how could he not have sentimentality?”

Zhuangzi said:

“Having a sense of right and wrong is what I call sentimentality. Someone I’d refer to as beingwithout sentimentality - that kind of person wouldn’t allow his likes and dislikes to cause physicalharm to his body. They would constantly follow what naturally occurs without looking to profitfrom life.”

Hui Zi said:

“If someone doesn’t look to profit from life, how would they still be able to have a body?”

Zhuangzi said:

“Dao gives him his demeanor and the heavens give him a physical shape, but they don’t create inhim a way for likes and dislikes to harm his body. Now, you’re remaining outside of your spirit, yetlaboring to refine your spiritual essence. All the while you’re leaning against a tree grunting,drifting off into a stupor under this tall shade tree. The heavens chose this physical shape for you,and you use it to chirp about pointless arguments.”

The Inner Chapter Six:

Teachings from those who were Great who are no longer alive

One who has knowledge about what actions are of the heavens and what actions are of people hasreached attainment. One who knows the actions of the heavens merges her life with the heavens.One who knows the actions of people accepts that knowledge is a part of her intellect and increasesthat knowledge because she accepts her own ignorance. In the end she will have lived out hernatural life span and not have been cut down in the middle of her youth. She’s fulfilled every aspectof her knowledge.

Even so, there’s still something to be concerned about. Having knowledge can only go so far andthen it’s subject to measurements. One gets to a certain point then starts questioning how farthey’ve gotten. How could I sort out whether what I think is coming from the heavens isn’t comingfrom people, and what I think is coming from people isn’t coming from the heavens? Moreover, onehas to become a true person before they can have true knowledge. What is a true person?

The true person of ancient times wasn’t opposed to the idea of being different than the rest ofsociety, didn’t try to be macho, and didn’t plan for a lucrative career. Someone like that couldmove from one situation to another with no regret, and measure up her self worth withoutbecoming smugly self-satisfied. Someone like that could climb to dizzying heights without tremblingin fear, enter water without feeling wet, and enter fire without feeling the heat. This kind ofperception enables one to ascend on the tails of Dao.

The true person of ancient times could sleep without dreaming, could awaken without anxiety,could eat food without relishing in it, and could completely fill her lungs when breathing. A trueperson breathed all the way down to her heels, while other people’s breath only filled the top oftheir lungs. Those who bend over in submission seem to spew forth words from their mouths likevomit. Those who harbor old desires deeply within them leave only a shallow space for the heavensto maneuver.

The true person of ancient times wasn’t aware of expressing joy in life, nor of feeling aversion todeath. He didn’t feel a need to be gracious when he left, nor did he feel a need to be aloof when heentered. He could leave as swiftly as he arrived, and there was nothing more to it. He didn’t forgetwhere he began, but didn’t question where he’d end up. He celebrated what was received, andrecaptured what had been forgotten. This is called not using the mind to contribute to Dao, and notusing people to assist the heavens. That’s what was called a true person.

Being such, his heart was adaptable, his appearance was unruffled, his forehead was unwrinkled.With a coolness like autumn and a warmth like springtime, joy and anger flowed through him likethe four seasons. He found contentment with all things and didn’t think about when he’d reach the

pinnacle. Therefore, if a wise person has to resort to using weapons, his country might be destroyedbut the people’s hearts wouldn’t be lost. The benefits would carry over to all the future generations,but not because of his love for any person.

Therefore, trying to transfer happiness into other living things will not make one a sage.Experiencing intimate personal relationships will not make one benevolent. Trying to keep in timewith the heavens will not make one worthy. One who isn’t able to reconcile advantage withdisadvantage will not be a good ruler. One who loses himself seeking fame won’t be a good student.One who inadvertently loses his body won’t be good at serving others.

Hu Bu Xie, Wu Guang, Bo Yi, Shu Qi, Ji Zi, Xu Yu, Ji Tuo, and Shen Tu Di (men who weremoralists and reformers in ancient times who ended up being killed or committing suicide) were allin service to what other people served, agreeably followed what other people followed, but theycouldn’t be comfortable enough with their own natures to follow themselves.

A true person of ancient times appeared to be acting properly, even though she didn’t conform tothe norm. She seemed to be lacking, but didn’t grovel for favors. She had some rough edges, butwasn’t obstinate. She was extensively empty, but didn’t superficially attract anything. She brightlylit up everything around her as though she was ecstatic! She soared like an eagle as though therewas no need to find a place to land! Her facial expression took on a glowing quality. What she waswilling to concede stopped with her own virtue. She seemed harsh to those of her own generation!She was so diverse that there was no way to control her. When there was a new fad or trend shedidn’t follow it. She was so inattentive that she forgot what she was going to say.

She regarded suffering as a compression of the body, rituals as flights of fancy, knowledge asopportunity, and virtue as a means of protection. Because she regarded suffering as a compressionof the body, she was gentle with reprimands. Because she regarded rituals as flights of fancy, she

went along with the times. Because she regarded knowledge as an opportunity, she used what wasavailable in dealing with her affairs. Because she regarded virtue as a means of protection, sheencouraged others to walk on their own feet in order to reach the pinnacle and people genuinelyattended to what they were involved with.

So, she united with what was enjoyable, and she united with what wasn’t enjoyable. Being united isunity, and not being united is unity. Being united, she followed the heavens. Being not united, shefollowed people. When the heavens and people join together, there’s no need for one to bevictorious over the other. A true person is said to be like this.

Death and life are destined. They’re as certain as the the sky progressing from night into dawn.There are certain things a person can’t do anything about. All living things are in that situation.There are those who set up a special figure as the Father of the Heavens (God) and are only able tolove the image they have of him as a person. There might be something even above that! People setup someone who they believe has special powers to heal them, but their bodies eventually dieanyway. There might be something even more effective than that!

When a stream dries up the fish gather together in a crater on the land. They moisten each otherwith their saliva and splatter each other with foam. It’d be better for them to be swimming freely inrivers and lakes than to be concerned with havng to do these things to keep each other alive. Ratherthan to praise Yao and condemn Jie, it would be better to forget both of them and how differenttheir Ways were.

The great clump of earth (the world) is loaded down with our physical forms, struggles to keep usalive, cradles us in our old age, and provides a place to rest our bodies after we die. Therefore,what’s good at keeping us alive will also be good at providing a place for us to die.

A man may try to hide away a boat in a gully, which would be like trying to hide a mountain in aswamp, but he believes it’s in a secure place. Even so, around midnight a strong person might come

along and hoist the boat onto his shoulders and walk away with it. Since it was so dark outside, noone would know. Hiding something small within something larger might seem like the appropriatething to do, yet anything could still be carted off. If a man were to hide everything in the worldwithin the world, there would be no place left for anything to be removed to. Living things arealready constantly in this great situation. Someone might have an especially attractive body, andthey’d be pleased about that. However, a human shape can be changed by any number of things,and those changes might not necessarily ever come to an end. Is there pleasure to be found incounting the victories? Therefore, a wise person will travel where things take them rather thantrying to constrain things where they don’t belong.

Whether it’s better to die young or to live to an old age; whether things will start out good or endup good - people just keep looking for ways to find meaning in those things. It’s like everyone islooking for more things to be concerned about, as though they’re waiting for one thing to comealong and change everything!

Dao expresses itself and provides evidence of itself, but not by taking actions or showing a shape. Itdoles out things, but doesn’t take anything back. It can enter within you, but can’t be perceived. Itwas rooted in itself and grew from its own roots before there was a universe. It was so ancient thatit was there before anything existed. It provided vital energy for both demons and gods. It gave lifeto both the heavens and the earth. It reaches higher than the ether of the sky, but doesn’t becometall. It reaches lower than the core of the earth, but doesn’t become deep. It began before theheavens and earth, but can’t be measured by time. It was around from the most remote ages, butdoesn’t become old.

The clansman Shi of Wei got it so as to support the heavens and earth.

Fu Xi got it and found the key to the breath of Mother Nature.

Wei Dou (a star in the constellation Sagittarius considered to be the center point of our galaxy) gotit so as to eternally stay true to its course.

The sun and moon got it so as to constantly keep moving.

Kan Pi (a spirit, said to have a human face and the body of an animal) got it so as to penetrate theKun Lun mountains.

Ping Yi (a spirit of the Yellow River) got it so as to travel through the great river.

Jian Wu (a mountain spirit) got it so as to dwell on Mount Tai.

Huang Di got it so as to rise up into the clouds in the heavens.

Zhuan Xu got it so as to dwell in the Black Palace.

Yu Qiang (god of the North Sea) got it and stood on the North Pole.

Xi Wang Mu got it and sat on Shao Guang. No one knows where it (this mountain) begins or ends.

Peng Zu got it and was able to live from the time of the beginning of the Zhou dynasty through thesuccession of five rulers (five lifetimes for most people).Fu Yue got it so as to become Prime Minister to Wu Ding. Then he suddenly was in control of thewhole empire, perching on the hand of Sagittarius and riding into Scorpio’s basket as though hewas a shooting star.

Nan Bo Zi Qi (Exalted Count of Southern Curiosity) asked of Nu Yu (Independent Woman):

“You’re old in years, but your face beams like a child. Why is that?”

“Ive learned about Dao.”

Nan Bo Zi Qi said:

“Can Dao be obtained through studying?”

“What? How could that be posssible? You’re not the kind of person who could do that anyway.There was a guy named Bu Liang Yi (Rigidly Biased Fortuneteller) who had the ability to become asage, but wasn’t wise enough to learn about Dao. I’m wise enough to learn about Dao, but don’thave the ability to become a sage. I really wanted to teach him. Oh, what great hopes I had thathe’d end up becoming a true sage! It’s not so easy to change one who has the ability to become asage into one who is wise enough to learn about Dao simply by explaining it to them. Yet I kept aclose watch on him and tried to explain it. After three days he could disregard the world. After hedisregarded the world, I still kept at him. After seven days he could disregard living things. Afterhe disregarded living things, I still kept at him. After nine days he could disregard life. After hedisregarded life, he could then penetrate everything like the first rays of sun in the morning. Beingable to penetrate everything like the first rays of sun in the morning, he could then see each thingindividually. Being able to see each thing individually, he could then overcome a sense of past andfuture. Being able to overcome a sense of past and future, he could then enter where there is nodeath and no birth. What kills life isn’t death. What brings forth life isn’t birth. As for how herelated to things - without following, without rejecting, without constructing, without destroying. Aname for this would be Embracing Contentment. One who embraces contentment - embraces andthen becomes complete.

Nan Bo Zi Qi asked:

“Are you the only one who’s heard about this?”“I heard about this from Master of Various Texts. Master of Various Texts heard about it fromOral Tradition. Oral Tradition heard about it from Clear Sightedness. Clear Sightedness heardabout it from Midday Whisperer. Midday Whisperer heard about it from Humble Servant.Humble Servant heard about it from Oblivious Chanter. Oblivious Chanter heard about it from

Dark Mysteries. Dark Mysteries heard about it from Solitary Star. Solitary Star heard about itfrom Uncertain Beginning.”Zi Si (Great Sacrificial Attendant), Zi Yu (Great Charioteer), Zi Li (Great Ploughman) and Zi Lai(Great Messenger) all came together to have a chat saying:“Who can consider what doesn’t exist as his head, life as his spine and death as his buttocks?Whoever knows that life and death, surviving and perishing, are part of the same whole, I’d like totake them as a friend.”The four of them all looked at each other and laughed. They felt a profound intimacy with eachother in their hearts, and they they knew they’d formed a deep friendship with each other.Some time later, Zi Yu got sick. Zi Si went to see how he was doing.“How remarkable! This thing I’ve been turned into, that’s become so inflexible and stiff!”

His back had become curved and hunched, his five vital organs protruded to the outside, his chinwas hidden in his bellybutton, his shoulders were higher than the top of his head, and his fingerswere curved into hooks that pointed up to the sky. Even though his vital energy seemed to becompletely out of whack, his heart was clear and he didn’t seem concerned. He dragged himselfover to the well, looked at his image in the water and said:

“Ugh! Look at this thing I’ve been turned into, and how inflexible and stiff it is.”

Zi Si asked:

“Do you hate it?”

“What’s the point in hating what’s been taken away or what’s been given to me! Supposing my leftarm gradually turned into a chicken - then I could use it to tell when it was nighttime. Supposingmy right arm gradually turned into a crossbow - then I could use it to shoot down a bird to roast.Supposing my buttocks gradually turned into a wheel and my spirit into a horse - then I could rideon it. What need would I have for any other means of transportation!

“Furthermore, whatever is received comes at the right time. Whatever has been lost must beadapted to. Calmly accepting and dwelling in compliance, then neither grief nor joy would be ableto creep in. This is what’s been called being released from bondage, and for those who can’t find arelease, there will always be something to put them into bondage. Besides, living things can’t bevictorious over what Nature has been causing to occur since the beginning of time. What reasoncould I find for hatred!”

Some time later, Zi Lai became ill, panting and gasping while near death. His wife and childrenwere grouped around him sobbing. Zi Li went to see how he was doing and said to them:

“Shame on you! Get away from him! Don’t show sadness - he’s merely going through changes.”

He then leaned against the door jamb and said to his friend:

“How remarkable! The changes you’re experiencing! What will you become next - what will youturn into? Will you become a rat’s liver? Will you become an insect’s arm?”

Zi Lai said:

“When a father and mother produce a child, east, west, south and north converge at a point thatsets the destiny he must follow. When those multiple energies within a person converge, he’sdirected by them as though they were his father and mother. They’ve brought me close to death,and if I try to prevent it then I’m being foolhardy. How silly to look at this as some sort of crimethat’s been committed! The great clump of earth (the world) is loaded down with my physical form,struggles to keep me alive, cradles me in my old age, and provides a place to rest my body after Idie. Therefore, that which is good at keeping me alive will also be good at providing a place for meto die. Now if a great blacksmith was pounding some metal, and the metal jumped up at him andsaid: ‘I absolutely must be made into Mo Ye (a famous ancient Chinese double edged sword)’, the

blacksmith would think that piece of metal was an ill omen. Now, if I were ever to try to go againstthe shape my form has taken and say: ‘Make me a whole person, nothing but a whole person’, thenMother Nature would think that this person was an ill omen. Now, if the universe is like one greatbig oven, and Mother Nature is like a master blacksmith, where is it that we shouldn’t go? Asnaturally as we fall into a sound sleep, we just as naturally suddenly wake up.”

Zi Sang Hu (Great Silkworm Cultivator), Meng Zi Fan (Elder Great Mercenary) and Zi Qin Zhang(Great Lute Stringer) were three friends who got along well with each other.

One of them said:

“Who can join with others while not joining with others; act with others while not acting withothers? Who can ascend to the heavens, travel on the mist, stirring up things without any end insight, all the while forgetting about life without getting exhausted?”

The three of them all looked at each other and laughed. Feeling a profound intimacy with eachother in their hearts, they knew they’d formed a deep friendship with each other.

Not long after that Zi Sang Hu died. When he had not yet been buried, Kong Zi (Confucius) heardabout it and sent Zi Gong (a disciple of Confucius) to go see what was going on. One of the friendswas composing a tune while the other was playing music.

They sang together:

“Oh, Sang Hu has arived!

“Oh, Sang Hu has arrived!

“And already returned to his original being,

“While we’re still serving as humans!”

Zi Gong rushed into the room and asked:

“How in the world could you both be singing over a dead body - is that proper conduct?”

The two friends looked at each other and laughed, then said:

“How could that guy know what proper conduct is?”

Zi Gong returned to tell Kong Zi what had happened:

“What kind of people are those guys? They can’t even control their behavior and have no respectfor their friend’s physical body. They sit right next to the dead body singing without showing anysigns of adapting their demeanor to the situation, in complete disorder. What kind of people arethey?”

Kong Zi said:

“They both wander around outside the set boundaries, whereas I wander within the limits set bysociety. Those outside and those inside don’t mingle with each other, and it was stupid of me to sendyou there to console them. The only boundaries those two adhere to are those set on people byNature, and they wander among the singular essence of the universe. They consider life to be aninsignificant attachment hanging there like a wart, and death to be the final removal of theulcerated growth. Being that way, how would they have any conception of life and death or pastand future! They avail themselves of the strange anatomy of their bodies, rely on the harmony oftheir vessel, forget about their internal organs, don’t pay much attention to their ears and eyes, andrepeatedly experience endings and beginnings without having a clue what’s going on. In that waythey pace back and forth through the dust and dirt while not being affected by it - free andunfettered without acting like they have something to gain. How could they be troubled or anxiousabout society’s rules and mandates, or be troubled about being observed by everybody else’s eyesand ears!”

Zi Gong said:

“That being so, Master, why do you rely on the boundaries?”

“I’m the heaven’s sacrificial lamb. That’s something I could share with you.”

Zi Gong said:

“Then I’d appreciate hearing more about boundaries.”

Kong Zi said:

“Fish were established together in water. People were established together in Dao. Those who areestablished together in water penetrate to the depths of a pond and find nourishment. Those whoare established together in Dao don’t cater to others and their lives are easier. Therefore it’s beensaid: ‘Fish forget about each other when in rivers and streams. People forget about each otherwhen on the path of Dao.’ “

Zi Gong said:

“May I ask about the non-conformist?”

“As for the nonconformist, he seems odd to other people, but is tuned in to the heavens. Thereforeit’s been said: ‘Someone who has little to do with Nature would be looked up to by people. Someonewho is looked up to by people would have little to do with Nature.’ “

Yan Hui asked Zhong Ni (Confucius):

“When Meng Sun Cai’s mother died, he wept without shedding a tear, didn’t feel sadness in thecenter of his heart, and mourned without wailing. Although he didn’t do any of those three things,he’s still thought of as the best mourner in the state of Lu. How can someone who’s evidently sosuperficial to their core still receive accolades? I, for one, find this astonishing.”

(Note: Part of the rituals mandated in China at the time considered to be proper behavior at afuneral were the three mentioned above: Crying uncontrolably while shedding many tears, givingthe appearance that one’s heart was broken, and wailing loudly at the loss.)

Zhong Ni said:

“Mr. Meng Sun has reached a pinnacle! He’s advanced beyond mere knowledge. By being at easewith what’s been taken away, that shows a bit of being at ease. Mr. Meng Sun doesn’t think muchabout life, nor does he think much about death. He doesn’t think much about what happened in thepast, nor about what’s going to happen in the future. He seems to adapt to whatever happensaround him. By waiting for events to come about on their own without trying to figure them out,he’s already adapted to them!

“Moreover, if limitations eventually change, how can perceptions not change along with them? Iflimitations remain the same, does that mean that perceptions will stop changing? Maybe you and Iare peculiar in that we’re dreaming and haven’t yet awakened?

“That guy (Meng Sun) was startled by the transformation of a shape (his mother’s death), but hisheart wasn’t damaged by it. He dwells where each moment is like a new dawn, and isn’t affected

emotionally by death. Mr. Meng Sun is uniquely awake. If people cry, he too cries. That’s becausehe can put himself in their place. Moreover, he can make connections beyond what I can hear withmy own ears. So how could I really know about myself simply by listening to the words I speak?You might dream you’re a bird and soar up into the sky, or dream you’re a fish and sink to thebottom of a deep pond. We can’t tell whether the words we’re using are based on being awake or ifthey’re coming from a dream.

“Trying to make a situation more pleasant isn’t as good as laughing out loud. Faked laughter isn’tas good as the kind that naturally erupts. Be comfortable with those eruptions and give up trying tomodify them - only then can one enter into the boundless unity of Nature.”

Yi Er Zi (Mr. Trace of a Beard) went to see Xu You (a legendary hermit).

Xu You said:

“How has Yao enriched you?”

Yi Er Zi replied:

“Yao told me: ‘You must bow down with benevolence and righteousness while speaking clearlyabout Right and Wrong.’ “

Xu You said:

“Then why have you driven all the way out here? Since the Great Yao has already stained you withideas about benevolence and righteousness, and stunted you with ideas about Right and Wrong,how will you be able to wander in many directions, swinging freely with reckless abandon, spinningdown a path that constantly moves?”

Yi Er Zi replied:

“You might be right, but I’d still like to check out that kind of path by walking along side it.”

Xu You said:

“That’s not remotely possible. A blind man can’t truly appreciate the pleasures of seeing beautifulthings and outstanding colors. One who has impaired eyesight can’t even tell the difference betweengreen and yellow embroidery on a robe.”

Yi Er Zi said:

“Wu Zhuang lost all sense of her beauty. Ju Liang lost all sense of his strength. Huang Diabandoned all sense of his knowledge. All of them eventually became refined by picking up on whatwas sent out. How can I know if some great force might come along and get rid of my stains andreplace what was stunted, making me able to ride along with you and follow you as my teacher?”

Xu You said:

“Humph! But then, you never can tell. I’ll give you the general outline of what I’d say to you:

“My teacher! My Teacher!

“Gave to all living things, but not because that’s righteous.

“Promoted clarity throughout all generations, but not because that’s benevolent.

“Increased from the beginning of time, but not because that’s admirable.

“Enabled the universe to contain all the shapes which have been cut and carved, but not becausethat’s a special skill.

“From this place begin your wandering.”

Yan Hui said:

“I’ve reached a new plateau in my cultivation.”

Zhong Ni (Confucius) asked:

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’ve fogotten all about benevolence and righteousness.”

“That’s great, but you’re still not finished.”

On another day they met again and Hui said:

“I’ve reached a new plateau in my cultivation.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’ve forgotten all about rituals and celebrations”

“That’s great, but you’re still not finished.”

On another day they met again and Hui said:

“I’ve reached a new plateau in my cultivation.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I sit in forgetfulness.”

Zhong Ni perked up at this and asked:

“What do you mean by sitting in forgetfulness?”

Yan Hui replied:

“My bones seem to droop like branches overloaded with fruit. My intelligence and clevernessbecome overshadowed by darkness. Any knowledge has evaporated as well as any sense of my ownshape. I feel embraced by a great openness. That’s what I mean by sitting in forgetfulness.”

Zhong Ni said:

“Being embraced in that way, then you’d be without preferences. Transforming in that way, thenyou’d easily change. As a result, you’ve become almost a Sage! I beg you to allow me to take you asmy teacher and follow you.”

Zi Yu (Great Charioteer) and Zi Sang (Great Silkworm Cultivator) were friends. When there hadbeen a continuous downpour for ten days, Zi Yu said, “Zi Sang might have gotten sick!” So hepacked up some food and went to feed his friend. When he reached Zi Sang’s door, he heard whatsounded like something between a song and wailing. A voice accompanied by a drum and lute sangout:

“Father? Mother? The heavens! Mankind!”

The sounds were all jumbled and didn’t seem to make sense, as though the lyrics were so rushedthat parts were missing. Zi Yu went into the house and said:

“I’ve just heard the lyrics to your song. What are you trying to say?”

“I was just wondering what’s caused me to get to such an extreme state, but I can’t figure it out.Would my father and mother have wanted me to end up so poor? The heavens are impartial as towhat it will protect. The earth is impartial as to what it will support. Why would the heavens andthe earth make me in particular so poor? I keep asking what it is that’s done this to me, but I can’tget an answer. If it can just happen that one could reach this extreme state, it must be due todestiny.”

The Inner Chapter Seven:

Responding to (Complying with) Emperors and Kings

Nie Que (Cracked and Missing Teeth) asked Wang Ni (Master of Bewilderment) four questions,and four times he (Wang Ni) said he didn’t know. Nie Que jumped up with great delight and ran totell Pu Yi Zi (Mr. Cattail Coat) about it.

Pu Yi Zi said:

“Is this something new to you? Clansman You Yu (Emperor Shun) wasn’t as good as Clansman Tai(a legendary ruler, possibly Fu Xi). As for Clansman You Yu, he still hid behind benevolence inorder to coerce people. In that way he got what he wanted from the people, but he could never giveup seeing the faults of people. As for Clansman Tai, he would lie down completely at ease and wakeup refreshed. In one moment he could become a horse and in the next moment become an ox. Hisknowledge was sensitively honesty, his virtue was extremely genuine, and he’d never even considerthe faults of others.”

Jian Wu went to see Kuang Jie Yu (Lunatic Hit by a Chariot).

Kuang Jie Yu asked:

“What did Ri Zhong Shi (Sleeps Until Midday) tell you?”

Jian Wu replied:

“He told me that a ruler should wrap himself up in what has been prescribed as righteousness tothe fullest degree. People wouldn’t dare to ignore what he said and would all be transformed!”

Jie Yu said:

“That would be like browbeating them with virtue. If that’s the way someone tries to govern theworld, it would be like trying to wade across the ocean, trying to carve a channel through a river ortrying to make a mosquito carry a mountain on its back. If a wise person were to set out to governanything, would they simply expect to see an outer appearance of compliance? Things may appearto be attuned, but are they really? Then one may simply look for proper behavior and stop there.Moreover, a bird can soar very high to avoid being harmed by an arrow. A gopher can dig verydeep into the earth beneath a sacred hill to avoid the risk of being dug up. There was a time thosetwo creatures didn’t need to have that kind of knowledge.”

Tian Gen (Firmly Planted in the Heavens) was traveling along the sunny side of a fertile hill. Whenhe reached the top of a foaming waterfall, he came upon a nondescript man and asked:

“Excuse me, but may I ask you about how one can govern the world?”

The nondescript man replied:

“Go away! You’re a despicable person to have the nerve to ask me about something so unpleasant.I was just about to give myself over to the creator of things. Once I’m satisfied with that, I canbecome like a small bird and peek through tall grass, not be restrained by the six directions, andtravel around without wondering where my neighborhood is. Wherever I happen to be at themoment would be like an open countryside. Why would you come around here asking me aboutsetting the world in order as though I have any feelings in my heart about that?”

He (Tian Gen) repeated the question, so the nondescript man said:“You wander light-heartedly, adopt an indifferent attitude, spontaneously go along with things anddon’t hold on to your self-image. Then the world would be governed properly.”

Yang Zi Ju went to see Lao Dan (Laozi) and said:

“There’s a person around here who can come down with any sort of illness yet remain as strong asa roof beam. Whoever tries to get to him, he can easily diffuse their intensity. He never tires in hislearning about Dao. Could he be compared with the enlightened kings?”Lao Dan replied:

“From the viewpoint of a Sage, even a pettty person could easily practice those methods. That kindof person could exhaust their body and still have a frustrated heart. Besides that, it’s the beautifulmarkings on tigers and leopards that cause them to be hunted. Because a monkey is easily trainedand a yak is obedient, they’re both captured and taken advantage of. Can those be compared withthe enlightened kings?”

This unsettled Yang Zi Ju, who then asked:

“Can I ask you about the way the enlightened kings ruled?”

Lao Dan replied:

“The enlightened kings ruled by being able to prevail over the entire world but having no sense oftheir own self-importance. They were able to change the way all living things dealt with each other,but without requiring the people to depend on them. They had no reason to boost their own self-worth, thus caused things to realize their own happiness. They stood on what happens naturally,and wandered without a sense of their own existence.”

In the state of Zheng there was a sorcerer called Ji Xian (One Who Can Influence the Seasons). Heknew when a person would die or be born; who would survive and who would perish; who wouldbe punished and who would receive blessings; who would live a long life and who would die young.He could predict those things and pinpoint them to the year, month and day - as though he wastruly connected with some spiritual force. When the people of Zheng saw him, they’d all run awayas he approached. When Lie Zi saw him, he was fascinated, and went to tell Hu Zi (Lie Zi’steacher) about it:

“At first I thought I could reach perfection by using your methods, Master. Then I came acrosssomeone who’s even more perfected.”

Hu Zi said:

“I’ve already shared with you the literature, but haven’t yet shared its practical applications, andyet you’re so sure you’ve grasped Dao. With a coop full of chickens but no fertile male, what kindof eggs would be produced? By trying to adapt Dao to the exaggerations of this generation, in aneffort to get them to believe in it, it’s no wonder you’re so easily taken in by other people. Try to getthis guy to come over here with you so I can see what he’s up to.”

The next day Lie Zi brought him to see Hu Zi. When they left, he (Ji Xian) told Lie Zi:“Oh dear! Sir, your Master is on the verge of death. He won’t live much longer - probably not formore than ten days. I saw something so strange about him - he looked like wet ashes.”

Lie Zi went back into the house, crying so hard that his tears drenched the front of his shirt whilehe was telling Hu Zi what had been said.

Hu Zi said:

“While he was here I appeared to him like patterns on the earth - like a field of grass that’sunmoving with the blades bent over. He probably saw that my natural workings were out of whack.Try to bring him back to see me again.”

The next day both of them came back to see Hu Zi. When they left, he (Ji Xian) told Lie Zi:“What good luck that your Master had a chance to meet me! He’s been completely healed, and nowhe’s going to live! I can see that those obstructions he was experiencing were only temporary.”

Lie Zi went back into the house and related this to Hu Zi.

Hu Zi said:

“While he was here I appeared to him like dust in the sky. I wasn’t concerned with fame orpossessions, and all of my inner workings hummed like a fine machine. He probably saw thateverything in me was working in fine order. Try to bring him back to see me again.”

The next day both of them came back to see Hu Zi.

When they left, he (Ji Xian) told Lie Zi:

“Sir, your Master is in disorder. I can’t make heads or tails out of his condition. When he stabilizesa little, let me come back and check on him.”

Lie Zi went back into the house and related this to Hu Zi.

Hu Zi said:

“This time I appeared to him like a large pipe in which nothing can become clogged. He probablysaw that there was nothing within me to be diagnosed. A large fish can be examined in a deep pond.Still water can be examined in a deep pond. Flowing water can be examined in a deep pond. Thereare nine ways a deep pond can be be examined, and those are three of them. Try to bring him backto see me again.”

The next day both of them came back to see Hu Zi. Before he had a chance to get settled, the manlost his composure and ran off.

Hu Zi said:

“Go find him!”

Lie Zi ran after him, but couldn’t catch up, so he returned and told Hu Zi:

“He’s already taken off, and I can’t find him anywhere.”

Hu Zi said:

“This time I appeared to him as though I hadn’t yet been associated with any known species.

I made myself completely empty and compliant, without having a clue as to who I was, makingmyself like the wind or like a wave on the ocean. That’s why he ran away.”

After this happened Lie Zi considered himself to not yet have learned anything and decided tomake a fresh start. For three years he didn’t go anywhere. He spent time cooking at his wife’s oven,and feeding the pigs in the same way he would feed people. He had no outside relationships with theaffairs of others. He spent his time carving figurines and returning to a simple life. Becoming like aclod of dirt, he only used his form as a means to stand erect.

He saw disorder and rectification as one and the same until the end of his days.

Without seeking to become famous after death;

Without seeking to become a scheming politician;

Without seeking to become an event planner;

Without seeking to become a smart ruler;

Endlessly allowing the body to be guided by the spirit within, and wandering without a purpose;

Endlessly receiving from the heavens, and not looking for results;

Allowing emptiness to be regained - and that’s all.

A perfected person’s attention is like a mirror. Without a will or a face of its own. Free flowing andunhidden.

In that way they have the ability to win over things without harming them.

The emperor of Nan Hai (the South Sea) is known as Shu (The Fixer). The emperor of Bei Hai (theNorth Sea) is known as Hu (Nonchalant). The emperor of what lies between the two extremes isknown as Hun Dun (Chaos [the primordal blob out of which heaven and earth divided] ). The Fixerand Nonchalant often met with each other on the territory of Chaos, and Chaos was veryconsiderate towards them. The Fixer and Nonchalant were trying to figure out a way to repayChaos for his kindness.

“People all have seven apertures so they can see, hear, eat and breathe. He’s the only one withoutthem, so let’s try and bore some for him.”

Each day they bore one aperture into him. On the seventh day Chaos died.

Interpretation Chapter 1:

"Free and Easy Wandering"

The title of the first chapter of the Zhuangzi has also been translated as “Free and EasyWandering” and “Going Rambling Without a Destination.” Both of these reflect the sense of theDaoist who is in spontaneous accord with the natural world, and who has retreated from theanxieties and dangers of social life, in order to live a healthy and peaceful natural life. In modernMandarin, the word xiaoyao has thus come to mean “free, at ease, leisurely, spontaneous.” Itconveys the impression of people who have given up the hustle and bustle of worldly existence andhave retired to live a leisurely life outside the city, perhaps in the natural setting of the mountains.

But this everyday expression is lacking a deeper significance that is expressed in the classicalChinese phrase: the sense of distance, or going beyond. As with all Zhuangzi’s images, this is to beunderstood metaphorically. The second word, ‘yao,’ means ‘distance’ or ‘beyond,’ and here impliesgoing beyond the boundaries of familiarity. We ordinarily confine ourselves with our social roles,expectations, and values, and with our everyday understandings of things. But this, according toZhuangzi, is inadequate for a deeper appreciation of the natures of things, and for a moresuccessful mode of interacting with them. We need at the very least to undo preconceptions thatprevent us from seeing things and events in new ways; we need to see how we can structure andrestructure the boundaries of things. But we can only do so when we ourselves have ‘wandered

beyond’ the boundaries of the familiar. It is only by freeing our imaginations to reconceiveourselves, and our worlds, and the things with which we interact, that we may begin to understandthe deeper tendencies of the natural transformations by which we are all affected, and of which weare all constituted. By loosening the bonds of our fixed preconceptions, we bring ourselves closer toan attunement to the potent and productive natural way (dao) of things.

Paying close attention to the textual associations, we see that wandering is associated with the wordwu, ordinarily translated ‘nothing,’ or ‘without.’ Related associations include: wusuo (no place),wuyou (no ‘something’), and most famously wuwei (no interference). Roger Ames and David Hallhave commented extensively on these wu expressions. Most importantly, they are not to beunderstood as simple negations, but have a much more complex function. The significance of all ofthese expressions must be traced back to the wu of Laozi: a type of negation that does not simplynegate, but places us in a new kind of relation to ‘things’—a phenomenological waiting that allowsthem to manifest, one that acknowledges the space that is the possibility of their coming topresence, one that appreciates the emptiness that is the condition of the possibility of their capacityto function, to be useful (as the hollow inside a house makes it useful for living). The behavior of onewho wanders beyond becomes wuwei: sensitive and responsive without fixed preconceptions,without artifice, responding spontaneously in accordance with the unfolding of the inter-developingfactors of the environment of which one is an inseparable part.

But it is not just the crossing of horizontal boundaries that is at stake. There is also the verticaldistance that is important: one rises to a height from which formerly important distinctions losewhat appeared to be their crucial significance. Thus arises the distinction between the great and thesmall, or the Vast (da) and the petty (xiao). Of this distinction Zhuangzi says that the petty can notcome up to the Vast: petty understanding that remains confined and defined by its limitationscannot match Vast understanding, the expansive understanding that wanders beyond. Now, while itis true that the Vast loses sight of distinctions noticed by the petty, it does not follow that they are

thereby equalized, as Guo Xiang suggests. For the Vast still embraces the petty in virtue of its veryvastness. The petty, precisely in virtue of its smallness, is not able to reciprocate.

Now, the Vast that goes beyond our everyday distinctions also thereby appears to be useless. Asoaring imagination may be wild and wonderful, but it is extremely impractical and oftenaltogether useless. Indeed, Huizi, Zhuangzi’s friend and philosophical foil, chides him for this veryreason. But Zhuangzi expresses disappointment in him: for his inability to sense the use of this kindof uselessness is a kind of blindness of the spirit. The useless has use, only not as seen on theordinary level of practical affairs. It has a use in the cultivation and nurturing of the ’shen’ (spirit),in protecting the ancestral and preserving one’s life, so that one can last out one’s natural years andlive a flourishing life. Now, this notion of a flourishing life is not to be confused with a ’successful’life: Zhuangzi is not impressed by worldly success. A flourishing life may indeed look quiteunappealing from a traditional point of view. One may give up social ambition and retire in relativepoverty to tend to one’s shen and cultivate one’s xing (nature, or life potency).

To summarize: When we wander beyond, we leave behind everything we find familiar, and explorethe world in all its unfamiliarity. We drop the tools that we have been taught to use to tame theenvironment, and we allow it to teach us without words. We imitate its spontaneous behavior andwe learn to respond immediately without fixed articulations.

Interpretation of Chapter 2:

"Theories on All Things Being Equal"

If the Inner Chapters form the core of the Zhuangzi collection, then the Qi Wu Lun may be thoughtof as forming the core of the Inner Chapters. It is, at any rate, the most complex and intricate of thechapters of the Zhuangzi, with allusions and allegories, highly condensed arguments, and bafflingmetaphors juxtaposed without explanation. It appears to be concerned with the deepest and most‘abstract’ understanding of ourselves, our lives, our world, our language, and our understandingitself. The most perplexing sections concern language and judgment, and are filled with paradox,sometimes even contradiction. But the contradictions are not easy to dismiss: their context indicatesthat they have a deep significance. In part, they appear to attempt to express an understandingabout the limits of understanding itself, about the limits of language and thought.

This creates a problem for the interpreter, and especially for the translator. How do we deal withthe contradictions? The most common solution is to paraphrase them so as to remove the directcontradictoriness, under the presupposition that no sense can be made of a contradiction. The mostcommon way to remove the contradictions is to insert references to points of view. Thosetranslators, such as A. C. Graham, who do this are following the interpretation of the Jin dynastycommentator Guo Xiang, who presents the philosophy as a form of relativism: apparently opposingjudgments can harmonized when it is recognized that they are made from different perspectives.

According to Guo Xiang’s interpretation, every thing has its place, its own nature (ziran); everything has its own value that follows from its own nature. So nothing should be judged by valuesappropriate to the natures of other things. According to Guo Xiang the vast and the small are equalin significance: this is his interpretation of the word qi in the title, “equalization of all viewpoints”.Now, such a radical relativism usually has the goal of issuing a fundamental challenge to the statusquo, arguing that the established values have no more validity than any of the minority values, nomatter how shocking they may seem to us. Thus, its effect is usually one of destabilization of thesocial structure. Here, however, we see another of the possible consequences of such a position:paradoxically enough, its inherent conservativeness. Guo Xiang’s purpose in asserting this radicaluniqueness and necessity of each position is conservative in this way.

Indeed, it appears to be articulated precisely in response to those who oppose the traditional Ruistvalues of humanity and rightness (ren and yi) by claiming to have a superior mystical ground fromwhich to judge them to be lacking. Guo Xiang’s aim in asserting the equality of every thing, everyposition, and every function, is to encourage each thing, and each person, to accept its own place inthe hierarchical system, to acknowledge its value in the functioning of the whole. In this way,radical relativism actually forestalls the possibility of radical critique altogether!

According to this reading, the Vast perspective of the giant Peng bird is no better than the pettyperspectives of the little birds who laugh at it. And indeed, Guo Xiang, draws precisely thisconclusion. But there is a problem with taking this reading too seriously, and it is the kind ofproblem that plagues all forms of radical relativism when one attempts to follow them throughconsistently.

Simply put, Zhuangzi would have to acknowledge that his own position is no better than those heappears to critique. He would have to acknowledge that his Daoist philosophy, indeed even thisarticulation of relativism, is no improvement over Confucianism after all, and that it is no lessshort-sighted than the logic-chopping of the Mohists. This, however, is a consequence that Zhuangzidoes not recognize. This is surely an indication that the radical relativistic interpretation is clearly amisreading. No intelligent radical relativist could fail to see this most obvious and directconsequence of their position. And the level of Zhuangzi’s intelligence clearly is above the ordinary.

Recently, some western interpreters (Lisa Raphals and Paul Kjellberg, for example) have focusedtheir attention on aspects of the text that express affinities with the Hellenistic philosophy ofSkepticism. Now, it is important not to confuse this with what in modern philosophy is thought of asa doctrine of skepticism, the most common form of which is the claim that we cannot ever claim toknow anything, for at least the reason that we might always be wrong about anything we claim toknow—that is, because we can never know anything with absolute certainty.

This is not quite the claim of the ancient Skeptics. Arguing from a position of fallibilism, these latterfeel that we ought never to make any final judgments that go beyond the immediate evidence, or theimmediate appearances. We should simply accept what appears at face value and have no furtherbeliefs about its ultimate consequences, or its ultimate value. In particular, we should refrain frommaking judgments about whether it is good or bad for us. We bracket (epoche) these ultimatejudgments. When we see that such things are beyond our ability to know with certainty, we willlearn to let go of our anxieties and accept the things that happen to us with equanimity. Such a stateof emotional tranquility they call ‘ataraxia.’

Now, the resonances with Zhuangzi’s philosophy are clear. Zhuangzi also accepts a form offallibilism. While he does not refrain from making judgments, he nevertheless acknowledges thatwe cannot be certain that what we think of as good for us may not ultimately be bad for us, or thatwhat we now think of as something terrible to be feared (death, for example) might not be anextraordinarily blissful awakening and a release from the toils and miseries of worldly life. Whenwe accept this, we refrain from dividing things into the acceptable and the unacceptable; we learnto accept the changes of things in all their aspects with equanimity. In the Skeptical reading, thetextual contradictions are also resolved by appealing to different perspectives from which differentjudgments appear to be true. Once one has learnt how to shift easily between the perspectives fromwhich such different judgments can be made, then one can see how such apparently contradictorythings can be true at the same time—and one no longer feels compelled to choose between them.

There is another way to resolve these contradictions, which involves recognizing the importance ofcontinuous transformation between opposites. In the tradition of Laozi’s cosmology, Zhuangzi’sworldview is also one of seasonal transformations of opposites. The world is seen as a giant clod (dakuai) around which the heavens (tian) revolve about a polar axis (daoshu). All transformationshave such an axis, and the aim of the sage is to settle into this axis, so that one may observe thechanges without being buffeted around by them.

Now, the theme of opposites is taken up by the Mohists, in their later Mohist Canon, but with avery different understanding. The later Mohists present a detailed analysis of judgments asrequiring bivalence: that is judgments may be acceptable (ke) (also, ‘affirmed’ shi) or unacceptable(buke) (also ‘rejected’ fei); they must be one or the other and they cannot be both. There mustalways be a clear distinction between the two. It is to this claim, I believe, that Zhuangzi is directlyresponding. Rejecting also the Mohist style of discussion, he appeals to an allusive, aphoristic,mythological style of poetic writing to upset the distinctions and blur the boundaries that theMohists insist must be held apart. The Mohists believe that social harmony can only be achievedwhen we have clarity of distinctions, especially of evaluative distinctions: true/false, good/bad,beneficial/harmful. Zhuangzi’s position is that this kind of sharp and rigid thinking can resultultimately only in harming our natural tendencies (xing), which are themselves neither sharp norrigid. If we, on the contrary, learn to nurture those aspects of our heart-minds (xin), our naturaltendencies (xing), that are in tune with the natural (tian) and ancestral (zong) within us, then wewill eventually find our place at the axis of the way (daoshu) and will be able to ride thetransformations of the cosmos free from harm. We will be able to sense and respond to what canonly be vaguely expressed without forcing it into gross and unwieldy verbal expressions.

Put another way, our knowledge and understanding (zhi, tong, da) are not just what we canexplicitly see before us and verbalize: in modern terms, they are not just what is ‘consciously,’‘conceptually,’ or ‘linguistically’ available to us. Zhuangzi also insists on a level of understanding

that goes beyond such relatively crude modes of dividing up our world and experiences. There arehidden modes of knowing, not evident or obviously present, modes that allow us to live, breathe,move, understand, connect with others without words, read our environments through subtle signs;these modes of knowing also give us tremendous skill in coping with others and with ourenvironments.

These modes of knowing Zhuangzi calls wuzhi, literally ‘without knowing,’ or ‘unknowing,’ whichHall and Ames render as ‘unprincipled knowing.’ What is known by such modes of knowing, whenwe attempt to express it in words, becomes paradoxical and appears contradictory. It seems thatbivalent distinctions leave out too much on either side of the divide: they are too crude a tool tocope with the subtlety and complexity of our non-conceptual modes of knowing. Zhuangzi,following a traditional folk psychology of his time, calls this capacity shenming: “spirit insight.”

When we nurture that deepest and most natural, most ancestral part of our pysches, throughpsycho-physical meditative practices, we at the same time nurture these non-cognitive modes ofunderstanding, embodied wisdoms, that enable us to deal successfully with our circumstances. It isthen that we are able to cope directly with what from the limited perspective of our socialized and‘linguistic’ understanding seems to be too vague, too open, too paradoxical.

Interpretations on Chapter 3:

"Opinions on Nurturing Life"

This chapter, like the Anarchist chapters, deals with the way to nurture and cultivate one’s ‘lifeforce’ (sheng, xing) so as to enable one to live skillfully and last out one’s natural years (qiong qitian nian). There is a ‘life’ within one that is a source of longevity, an ancestral place from whichthe phenomena of one’s life continue to arise. This place is to be protected (bao), kept whole (quan),nurtured and cultivated (yang). The result is a sagely and skillful life. We must be careful how weunderstand this word, ’skill.’ Zhuangzi takes pains to point out that it is no mere technique. Atechnique is a procedure that may be mastered, but the skill of the sage goes beyond this. Onemight say that it has become an ‘art,’ a dao. With Zhuangzi’s conception, any physical activity,whether butchering a carcass, making wooden wheels, or carving beautiful ceremonial bell stands,becomes a dao when it is performed in a spiritual state of heightened awareness (’attenuation’ xu).

Zhuangzi sees civic involvement as particularly inimical to the preservation and cultivation of one’snatural life. In order to cultivate one’s natural potencies, one must retreat from social life, or atleast one must retreat from the highly complex and artificially structured social life of the city. Oneundergoes a psycho-physical training in which one’s sensory and physical capacities become honedto an extraordinary degree, indicating one’s attunement with the transformations of nature, andthus highly responsive to the tendencies (xing) of all things, people, and processes. The masteryachieved is demonstrated (both metaphorically, and literally) by practical embodied skill. That is,practical embodied skill is a metaphor representing the mastery of the life of the sage, and is alsoquite literally a sign of sagehood (though not all those who are skillful are to be reckoned as sages).Thus, we see many examples of individuals who have achieved extraordinary levels of excellence intheir achievements—practical, aesthetic, and spiritual. Butcher Ding provides an example of apractical, and very lowly, skill; Liezi’s teacher, Huzi, in chapter 7, an example of skill in controllingthe very life force itself. Chapter 19, Mastering Life, is replete with examples: a cicada catcher, a

ferryman, a carpenter, a swimmer, and Woodcarver Qing, whose aesthetic skill reaches magicalheights.

Interpretation of Chapter 4:

"Relating To The Human World"

In this chapter, Zhuangzi continues the theme broached by the last chapter, but now takes on theproblem of how to protect and preserve one’s life and last out one’s years while living in the socialrealm, especially in circumstances of great danger: a life of civic engagement in a time of socialcorruption.

The Daoists, and Primitivists in general, are highly critical of the artificiality required to create andsustain complex social structures. The Daoists are skeptical of the ability of deliberate planning todeal with the complexities of the world within which our social structures have their place. Even thedevelopments of the social world when left to themselves are ‘natural’ developments, and as suchescape the confines of planned, structured thinking. The more we try to control and curtail thesenatural meanderings, the more complicated and unwieldy the social structures become.

According to the Daoists, no matter how complex we make our structures, they will never be fullyable to cope with the fluid flexibility of natural changes. The Daoists perceive the unfolding of thetransformations of nature as exhibiting a kind of natural intelligence, a wisdom that cannot bematched by deliberate artificial thinking, thinking that can be articulated in words. The result isthat phenomena guided by such artificial structures quickly lose their course, and have to beconstantly regulated, re-calibrated. This gives rise to the development and articulation of theartificial concepts of ren and yi for the Ruists, and shi and fei for the Mohists.

The Ruists emphasize the importance of cultivating the values of ren ‘humanity’ and yi‘appropriateness/rightness.’ The Mohists identify a bivalent structure of preference and evaluation.Our judgments can be positive or negative, and these arise out of our acceptance and rejection ofthings or of judgments, and these in turn arise out of our emotional responses to the phenomena ofbenefit and harm, that is, pleasure and pain. Thus, we set up one of two types of systems: theintuitive renyi morality of the Ruists, or the articulated structured shifei of the Mohists.

Zhuangzi sees both of these as dangerous. Neither can keep up with the complex transformations ofthings and so both will result in harm to our shen and xing. They lead to the desire of rulers toincrease their personal profit, their pleasure, and their power, and to do so at the expense of others.The best thing is to steer clear of such situations. But there are times when one cannot do so: thereis nothing one can do to avoid involvement in a social undertaking. There are also times—if one hasa Ruist sensibility—when one will be moved to do what one can and must in order to improve thesocial situation. Zhuangzi makes up a story about Confucius’ most beloved and most virtuousfollower, Yen Hui, who feels called to help ‘rectify’ the King of a state known for his selfishness andbrutality.

Zhuangzi thinks that such a motivation, while admirable, is ultimately misguided. There is little tonothing one can do to change things in a corrupt world. But if you really have to try, then youshould be aware of the dangers, be aware of the natures of things, and of how they transform anddevelop. Be on the lookout for the ‘triggers’: the critical junctures at which a situation can explodeout of hand. In the presence of danger, do not confront it: always dance to one side, redirect itthrough skilled and subtle manipulations, that do not take control, but by adding their own weightappropriately, redirect the momentum of the situation. One must treat all dangerous socialundertakings as a Daoist adept: one must perform xinzhai, fasting of the heart-mind. This is apsycho-physical discipline of attenuation, in which one nurtures one’s inner potencies, until oneachieves a heightened sensitivity to the tendencies of things. One then responds with the skill of asage to the dangerous moods and intentions of one’s worldly ruler.

Interpretation of Chapter 5:

"Calculations on Filfilling Virtue"

This chapter is populated with a collection of characters with bodily eccentricities: criminals withamputated feet, people born with ‘ugly’ deformities, hunchbacks with no lips. Perhaps some ofthese are moralistic advisors, like those of chapter 4, who were unsuccessful in bringing virtue andharmony to a corrupt state, and instead received the harsh punishment of their offended ruler?

But it is also possible that some were born with these physical ‘deformities.’ As the Commander ofthe Right says in chapter 3, “When tian (nature) gave me life, it saw to it that I would be onefooted.” These then are people whose natural capacity (de) has been twisted somehow, redirected,so that it gives them a potency (de) that is beyond the normal human range. At any rate, this out ofthe ordinary appearance, this extraordinary physical form, is a sign of something deeper: a potencyand a power (de) that connects them more closely to the ancestral source. These are the sages thatZhuangzi admires: those whose virtue (de) is beyond the ordinary, and whose signs of virtueindicate that they have gone beyond.

But what goes beyond is also the source of life. To hold fast to that which is beyond both living anddying, is perhaps also to hold fast to something that is beyond human and inhuman. To identifywith and nurture this source is to nurture that which is at the root of our humanity. Thus to go tothat which is beyond is not necessarily to become inhuman. Indeed, one might argue that it is tocreate the possibility of deepening one’s most genuine humanity, insofar as this is a deeper naturestill.

One Legged Man

Kung Wen Hsien saw Yo Shi and exclaimed:

“What kind of person is this?

How come only one foot?

Is this ordained by Heaven,

Or caused by Man?”

He then said to himself:

“It is Heaven, not Man.

Heaven’s destiny let him be crippled.

The image of Man is given by Heaven.

Therefore we know this is the work of Heaven, not Man.”

-The True Tao

Interpretation of Chapter 6:

"Teachings From Those Who Were Great But Are No LongerAlive"

The first part of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of the zhenren: the “True Man,” the“genuine person,” or “genuine humanity.” It begins by asking about the relation between tian andren, the natural/heaven and the human, and suggests that the greatest wisdom lies in the ability tounderstand both. Thus, to be forced to choose between being natural or being human is a mistake.A genuinely flourishing human life cannot be separated from the natural, but nor can it on thataccount deny its own humanity. Genuine humanity is natural humanity.

There are several sections devoted to explicating this genuine humanity. We find that the genuinelyhuman person, the zhen ren, is in tune with the cycles of nature, and is not upset by the vicissitudesof life. The zhenren like Laozi’s sage is somehow simultaneously unified with things, and yet nottied down by them. The zhenren is in tune with the cycles of nature, and with the cycles of yin yang,and is not disturbed or harmed by them. In fact, the zhenren is not harmed by them either in whatappears to us to be their negative phases, nor are their most extreme phases able to upset thebalance of the zhenren. This is sometimes expressed with what I take to be the hyperbole that thesage or zhenren can never be drowned by the ocean, nor burned by fire. However, followers ofwhat has come to be known as “religious” Daoism would, I believe, probably take these statementsmore literally.

In the second part of the chapter, Zhuangzi hints at the process by which we are to cultivate ourgenuine and natural humanity. These are meditative practices and psycho-physicaldisciplines—”yogas” perhaps—by which we learn how to nourish the ancestral root of life that iswithin us. We learn how to identify with that center which functions as an axis of stability aroundwhich the cycles of emotional turbulence flow. By maintaining ourselves as a shifting andresponding center of gravity we are able to maintain an equanimity without giving up our feelingsaltogether. We enjoy riding the dragon without being thrown around by it. Ordinarily, we arebuffeted around like flotsam in a storm, and yet, by holding fast to our ancestral nature, and byfollowing the nature of the environment—by “matching nature with nature”—we free ourselvesfrom the mercy of random circumstances.

In this chapter we see a mature development of the ideas of life and death broached in the firstthree chapters. Zhuangzi continues musing on the significance of our existential predicament asbeing inextricably tied into interweaving cycles of darkness and light, sadness and joy, living anddying. In chapter two, it was the predicament itself that Zhuangzi described, and he tried to focuson the inseparability and indistinguishability of the two aspects of this single process oftransformation. In this chapter, Zhuangzi tries to delve deeper to reach the center of balance, the‘axis of the way,’ that allows one to undergo these changes with tranquility, and even to acceptthem with a kind of ‘joy.’ Not an ecstatic affirmation, to be sure, but a tranquil appreciation of therichness, beauty, and ‘inevitability’ of whatever experiences we eventually will undergo. Again, notthat we must experience whatever is ‘fated’ for us, or that we ought not to minimize harm andsuffering where we can do so, but only that we should acknowledge and accept our situatedness,our thrownness into our situation, as the ‘raw materials’ that we have to deal with.

There are mystical practices hinted at that enable the sage to identify with the datong, the greaterflow, not with the particular arisings of these particular emotions, or this particular body, but withwhat lies within (and below and above) as their ancestral root. These meditative and yogic practicesare hinted at in this chapter, and also in chapter 7, but nothing in the text reveals what they are. Itis not unreasonable to believe that similar techniques have been handed down by the practitionersof religious Daoism. It is clear, nonetheless, that part of the change is a change in self-understanding, self-identification. We somehow learn to expand, to wander beyond, our boundariesuntil they include the entire cosmic process.

This entire process is seen as like a potter’s wheel, and simultaneously as a whetstone and as agrindstone, on which things are formed, and arise, sharpened, and are ground back down only tobe made into new forms. With each ‘birth’ (sheng) some ‘thing’ (wu) new arises, flourishes,develops through its natural (tian) tendencies (xing), and then still following its natural tendencies,responding to those of its natural environment, it winds down: enters (ru) back into theundifferentiated (wu) from which it emerged (chu). The truest friendship arises when members of acommunity identify with this unknown undifferentiated process in which they are embedded,‘forgotten’ differences between self and other, and spontaneously follows the natural developmentsof which they are inseparable ‘parts.’

Interpretation of Chapter 7:

Responding to (Complying with) Emperors and Kings

The last of the Inner Chapters does not introduce anything new, but closes by returning to arecurring theme from chapters 1, 3, 5, and 6: that of withdrawing from society. This ‘withdrawal’has two functions: the first is to preserve one’s ‘life’; the second is to allow society to functionnaturally, and thus to bring itself to a harmonious completion. Rather than interfering with socialinteractions, one should allow them to follow their natural course, which, Zhuangzi believes, will beboth imaginative and harmonious.

These themes resonate with those of the Anarchist chapters in the Outer (and Miscellaneous)chapters: 8 to 11a and 28 to 32. These encourage a life closer to nature in which one lets go ofdeliberate control and instead learns how to sense the tendencies of things, allowing them tomanifest and flourish, while also adding one’s weight to redirect their momentum away from harmand danger. Or, if harm and danger are unavoidable, then one learns how to minimize them, andhow to accept whatever one does have to suffer with equanimity.