国学经典著作（英汉）庄子英译版

ERNEST RICHARD HUGHES, born in London, 5th January 1883. M.A., Oxon. Missionary in the interior of China, 1911-29. In Shanghai, 1929 – 31. Reader in Chinese Religion and Philosophy in Oxford University, 1934-41; seconded to Chungking, 1942. Books include The invasion of China by the Western World, 1937. CHINESE PHILOSOPHY IN CLASSICAL TIMES Edited and Translated by E. A. HUGHES LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. INC. First published 1942 Last reprinted 1944 Chapter 1. Excursions into Freedom. In the Northern Ocean there is a fish, its name the Kun [Leviathan], its size I know not how many li. 1 By metamorphosis it becomes a bird called the P’eng [‘Roc’], with a back I know not how many li in extent. When it rouses itself and.flies, its wings darken the sky like clouds. With the sea in motion this bird transports itself to the Southern Ocean, the Lake of Heaven. In the words of Ch’i Hsieh, a recorder of marvels, ‘When the P’eng transports itself to the Southern Ocean, it thrashes the water for three thousand li, and mounts in a whirlwind to the height of ninety thousand li, and flies continuously for six months before it comes to rest.’ A mote in a sunbeam (that in one sense is all that this 1 Li – the Chinese mile, roughly a third of the English mile. 165 166 TAO EXPERTS vast Roc is): flying dust which living creatures breathe- in and out! And that blueness of the sky! Is it an actual colour, or is it the measureless depth of the heavens which we gaze at from below and see as ‘blue,’ just like that and nothing more? Again take water, without the dense accumulation of which there is no power for the floating of a great ship. And (think of) a cup of water upset in a corner of the hall. A tiny mustard seed becomes a ship (afloat), but the cup which held the water will remain aground because of the shallowness of the water and the size of the cup as a ship. So with the accumulation of wind, without sufficient density 1 it has no power to float huge wings. Thus it is that the P’eng has to rise ninety thousand li and cut off the wind beneath if. Then and not before, the bird, borne up by the down-pressed wind, floats in the azure heavens with secure support. Then and not before, it can start on its journey south. A cicada and a young dove giggled together over the P’eng. The cicada said, ‘When we exert ourselves to fly up on to the tall elms, we sometimes fail to get there and are pulled back to the ground; and that is that. Why then should any one mount up ninety thousand li in order to go south?’ Well, the man who goes out to the grassy country near by takes only three meals with him and comes back with his stomach well filled. But the man who has to travel a hundred li grinds flour for one night on the way; and the man who has to travel a thousand li requires food for three months. These two little creatures (the cicada and the dove), what can they know? Small knowledge is not equal to great knowledge, just as a short life is not equal to a long one. How do we know this to be so? The mushroom with one brief morning’s existence has no knowledge of the duration of a month. The chrysalis knows nothing of the spring and the. autumn. This is due to their short life. In the south of Ch’u State 1 ‘Density’ seems the only word to represent the Chinese. This is an admirable example of the realistic way in which a really great poet’s imagination works. CHUANG CHOU 167 there is a Ming-ling tree whose springs and autumns make five hundred years. In the old days there was a Ta-ch’un tree whose springs and autumns made eight thousand years. Right down to the present Grandfather P’eng 1 is famed for his immense age – although if all man matched him, how wretched they would be!... A variant version of the story of the Leviathan and the Roc is here given, winding up with a quail laughing at the P’eng and describing its flight among the bushes as ‘the perfection of flight.’ Chuang Chou says that this is due to the difference between small and great. He then continues: Thus it is that the knowledge of some men qualifies them for a small office and for effecting unity in one district, whilst the moral power of another man fits him to be a ruler and proves itself throughout a whole country. These men have a view of themselves which is like the quail’s view of himself. On the other hand, Master Yung of Sung State just laughs at these men. If the whole world should admire or criticize him, he would neither be encouraged nor discouraged. Having determined the difference between what is intrinsic and what extrinsic, he disputed the accepted boundaries of honour and dishonour. In this he was himself, and there are very few such men in the world. Nevertheless he was not really rooted. Take Master Lieh. He could drive the wind as a team and go, borne aloft, away for fifteen days before returning. Such a man attains a happiness which few possess. Yet in this, although he had no need to walk, there was still something on which he-was dependent [viz. the wind]..Sup-posing, however, that he were borne on the normality of the heavens and earth, driving a team of the six elements in their changes, and thus wandered freely in infinity-eternity, would there be anything then on which he was dependent? Thus it is that I say, ‘The perfect man has no self, the spirit-endowed man no achievements, the sage no reputation.’ 1 The Methuselah of Chinese tradition. 168 TAO EXPERTS (The Emptiness of Fame.) Take the Sage-king Yao, who wished to abdicate his throne in favour of the recluse Hsu Yu. Yao said, ‘When the sun or the moon is shining, if you should keep a torch alight, it surely would be difficult for it to give light. When the seasonal rain is falling, if you should keep on watering the ground, that would surely be waste of labour. Do you, my Teacher, establish yourself on the throne and the Great Society will be ordered. I am but a dead body. I see myself as incompetent. Pray then, reach out for the Great Society.’ Hsu Yu replied, ‘You, Sire, in ordering the Great Society have brought it to perfect order. If I should now take your place, it surely would be only for fame. But fame is only the transient part of the actual. Am I to act for a transient end? The tit builds its nest in the deep forest, but that nest takes up no more room than a twig. The tapir drinks from a great river, but it only fills its belly. Return and take your kingship easily. For my part there is no way by which I can be of use to the Great Society. If a cook cannot cope with his kitchen '(and prepare the sacrificial meats), the impersonator of the dead or the liturgist in the hall does not seize the cups and stand and take the cook’s place.’ (The Spiritual Man and the Inability of the Non-spiritual to understand him.) Chien Wu [an inquirer about the Taoist Way] inquired from Lien Shu, saying, ‘I heard Chieh Yu say something which went too far and is not really true. It carried one out, but did not bring one back, so its likeness to the bound- less Milky Way frightened me. It was grossly deceptive, removed from human experience.... He said that a spirit man lived on the Miao-ku-she mountain. His flesh and skin were like ice and snow: his delicate grace like a girl’s. His food was not that of ordinary men, for he breathed in the wind and drank the dew. He mounted the CHUANG CHOU 169 clouds in the air and drove a team of flying dragons, wandering out beyond the Four Seas. His spirit was congealed. Yet he delivered living things from corruption and every year made the crops ripen. For me this was a wild tale, and I did not believe him.’ ‘So,’ said Lien Shu, ‘the blind man has no conception of the beauty of art, nor the deaf man of the music of the bells and drums. Blindness and deafness are by no means confined to material things. These defects also exist in relation to things of the mind pit. to knowledge], and these words of yours make it appear that you are defective in this way. The virtue in that spirit man is such that all things are of little worth to him: they are all one to him. The world may be anxious to be governed: but why should he bother himself about society? That man, nothing can injure him. If there were a flood reaching to the sky, he would not be drowned. If there were a great drought and the metals and stones became liquid and the soil of the mountains were burnt up, he would not be hot. Why, the very refuse of his body would serve to manufacture a great sage-emperor. (How Greater Knowledge changes a Man’s Sense of Values.) A man of Sung State took some sacrificial caps to the State of Yueh 1 to sell. But the people of Yueh wore their hair short and adorned their bodies [? when they sacrificed], so that they had no use for the caps. In the same way the Sage-king Yao, who ruled the peoples of the Great Society and who had brought peace to all within the Four Seas, went to see the Four Masters of Miao-ku-she mountain. On his return to his capital, his Great Society no longer existed for him. (The sophist) Master Hui 2 in conversation with Master Chung said, ‘The King of Wei sent me the seed of a great gourd. I planted it and the result was a gourd as big as g five-bushel measure. When I used it for holding water, it 1 Yueh was a country on the borders of Chinese civilization, 2 This is Hui Shih, who is dealt with in Part Four, Chapter IX, 170 TAO EXPERTS was not rigid enough to bear lifting. If I had cut it up to make ladles, they would have been too shallow for the purpose. There was indeed no purpose for which it was not too big, so I broke it to pieces as useless.’ Master Chuang said, ‘Sir, you were stupid over the use of big things. For example, there was a man of Sung State who possessed a salve which healed chapped hands. His family, one generation after another, had been washers of silk. A stranger who had heard of this salve overed him a hundred ounces of gold for it. The clan, when called together to consider tne matter, said, “We have been wash- ing silk for generations and have only made a few ounces of gold. Now in one morning we can make a hundred ounces. Let us sell the salve.” The stranger, having obtained the salve, went and told the King of Wu, who was having trouble with Yueh State and had made the un- known man commander of his ships. He engaged the men of Yueh in winter time [when hands get chapped], and in the battle on the water he defeated the Yueh forces. 'For this he was rewarded with land and made a noble. The - ability to heal chapped hands was in both cases the same, but in the one case it meant a title of nobility, in the other it meant being tied down to washing silk. The difference lay in the way of using the salve. Now, Master Hui, you possessed a gourd as big as a five-bushel measure. Why then did you not consider it as a huge cup in which you could float on the rivers and lakes? instead of which you were distressed that it was too shallow to be a ladle. The conclusion, sir, is that it looks as if you had a dull mind, doesn’t it?’ Master Hui said, ‘I have a huge tree.... Its great trunk is so knobby and its small branches so twisted that you cannot put the measuring tools square on them. It stands by the public road, but no carpenter casts a glance at it. Now, Master Chuang; your words are big but of no use. Every one agrees in rejecting them.’ Master Chuang said, ‘Have you never seen a wild cat, its body crouching low as it waits for its prey? It springs from CHUANG CHOU 171 this side to that, now high, now low – end it gets caught in a trap and dies in a net! There is the yak, so big that it looms over one like a cloud in the sky. That is being really big; and yet it is no use for catching mice. Now, sir, you have a huge tree and you are distressed because it is of no use. Why do you not plant it in the village of non-exis-tence, in the open country of nothingness. Beside it you could wander in inaction; and beneath it you could be SYMBOL 183 \f "Symbol" \s 10 \h free to sleep. No axe would cut it down, nothing would injure it, for there would be no purpose for which it might be used. Would you not be free from trouble then?’ Chapter 2. The (Inner) Harmony of (Opposing) Things. 1 Tzu Ch’i, a man from Nan Kuo, leant against a low table as he sat on the ground. He looked up to heaven, and his breath died down. Without a sound he seemed to lose his partnership (of soul and body). Yen Ch’eng Tzu Yu, who was standing before him in attendance, said, ‘How is this, that you can make your body like a sapless tree and your mind like dead ashes? At this moment the person leaning against the table is not the person who was leaning against it before.’ Tzu Ch’i said, ‘Yen, this is a good question you are asking. At the moment, you must understand, my self was gone clean away. You have listened to the music which man makes, but you have not listened to the music of the earth; or you may have listened to the music of the earth, but you have not listened to the music of Heaven.’ Tzu Yu said, ‘May I ask you for an explanation of this?’ Tzu Ch’i said, ‘The great mass of breath (in the atmosphere) is,called the wind. There are times when the wind does not move. When it does move, a myriad apertures are aroused to make sounds. Have you never listened to the liao liao of the wind? You know the cavities and holes in the rugged heights of the mountains and the woods – with trees a hundred spans in girth. There are, as it were, 1 ‘Things’ in this chapter, as often elsewhere, includes not only things in Nature, but also institutions and ideas of every kind. 172 TAO EXPERTS noses and mouths and ears, square sockets and round depressions, mortars and ditches and pools. So there is a roaring and a snoring, a whistling and a sizzling, a howling and a yowling. The wind dies down and there is a tiny melody: it comes at full blast and there is a great diapason. There is a lull and every hole is devoid of sound....’ Tzu Yu said, ‘Since the music of the earth is just a matter of all kinds of holes, and human music a matter of pipes, may I ask what the music of Heaven is?’ Tzu Ch’i said, ‘All this blowing varies in a myriad ways. Who then can there be who excites all this and makes each way be itself and all of them be self-produced?’ (Supreme Knowledge and Partial Knowledge, and the Conditions under which they arise.) Great knowledge includes everything: small knowledge is restricted. Great speech has no pungency to it: small speech (may be pungent but) it is just chatter. Whether men are asleep and soul has communion with soul, or whether they are awake and the body is freed and its contacts are the basis of intercourse, the mind is day by day engaged in struggle. There are indecisions, grief', reservations, small fears giving rise to perturbation, great fears giving rise to recklessness. Consider the mind. In some men it shoots forth like a bolt from a cross-bow, assuming mastery of right and wrong. In others it holds back, merely guarding (the opinions) they have won. In others it decays like the decline of the year, in other words, day by day crumbling away to nothing. In others it is sunk in creaturely activity from which it cannot be drawn back. In others it is sealed with hates, in other words like an old drain (choked with muck). Thus the mind has one foot in the grave, and there is no way of reviving it [lit. bringing it back to the light of the sun]. (Consider the emotions.) Joy and anger, sorrow and delight, anxiety and regret, the fire of sex passion 1 and the 1 Emending the character pien to luan. CHUANG CHOU 173 (subsequent) feeling of contentment: evanescent moods, like the music coming from emptiness, like mushrooms coming from damp heat. Day and night alternate before our eyes, and there is no knowing what they may bring forth. (An emotion) gone, is gone, and to-morrow can by no means 1 reproduce it. What is the cause of the emotions? It is near to the truth to say that without them there is no ‘I,’ and without an ‘I’ they have nothing to take hold of. But we are ignorant as to what makes this so. There must be a True Lord, but we are least able to discover traces of His existence. We may act in the belief that He exists, but we cannot see His form, for the Reality. that exists has no form. (Consider the body and its parts,) its nine apertures and six internal organs, all in their places. Which of them shall we like best? Or are we to be pleased with them all alike? (As a matter of fact) each has its personal function, and thus all are in the position of servants: is that not so? As servants they have not the power to control each other: is that not so? Then can they take turn and turn about in being master and servant? (As a matter of fact) they have a true ruler in his place [viz. the ‘I’]; and whether they try or not to find out his reality does not add to or subtract from the truth about him. Once this ‘I’ has received its complete form and so long as it awaits the completion of its span, it cannot be nonexistent. But as it rubs and fights against the material world it is moving towards this completion with the speed of a galloping horse; and nothing can stop this. Alas, alas, to be throughout one’s life dispatched on service, but to see no achievement coming from it! To be wearied with one’s service and not to know what is its final object! Surely we are right in lamenting this. And nothing is gained by men affirming that there is no physical death. The body decomposes, and the mind decomposes with it. And surely we are right in alarming that this is supremely 1 Emending mu to mo. 174 TAO EXPERTS lamentable. Thus man's life is like a passing dream, 1 is it not? Unless it be that I alone am dreaming and other men are not dreaming. Men follow the dictates of their made-up minds, and there is no one who does not do this. But how can a priori knowledge take the place of the mind choosing for itself? This does happen, but it is the ignorant who allow it to happen. To make the distinction between right and wrong apart from the making up of the mind is equivalent to ‘going to Yueh to-day and arriving there in the past.’ 2 It amounts to making nothing be something.. But if nothing can be something, even a divine Yu 3 could not have knowledge, and there would be nothing we could do about it. Take speech. It is not just an emission of breath. The man who speaks has something to say, and what he has to say is by no means absolutely predetermined [i.e. apart from the speaker]. Are we to infer that the words exist (waiting to be said) or that they do not exist until they are said? And this is a question of whether we can prove a distinction between human speech and the chirping of fledgelings. The question has to be asked: how the Tao becomes obscured so that there is the distinction of true and false. Also, how is speech obscured so that there is the distinction of right and wrong? The Tao cannot go away (for a moment) and cease to be here; neith”r can words be here [i.e. have been spoken] and be impossible. The obscuring of the Tao is in relation to one-sided thinking, and the obscuring of speech is in relation to the embroidery of eloquence. Thus it is that there are the distinctions of right and wrong made by the Confucianists and the Mohists, the one affirming what the other denies, and denying what the other affirms. If then we want to affirm what they (both) deny and deny what they affirm, there is no other way than that of a clearer understanding. 1 Emending the character man to meng. 2 The famous paradox by Hui Shih. Cp. Part Four, Chapter IX. 3 The Sage-king Yu; CHUANG CHOU 175 (We have to realize that) a thing is both a ‘That’ and a ‘Tis,’ and it cannot see itself as a ‘That.’ If you know yourself, then you know. (Otherwise you do not know.) Thus it is that I maintain that the ‘That’ proceeds from the ‘This,’ also that the ‘This’ is linked to the ‘That.’ The' ‘That’ and the ‘This’ together, life interpreted under conditions (of time)! After all, now there is life, now death; now death, now life. What is possible at one time is impossible at another: arid what is impossible at one time is possible at another. Being linked to the right is being linked to the wrong, and being linked to the wrong is being linked to the right. That is why the sages do not follow these distinctions and Co become enlightened by Heaven, 1 and are linked to the ‘This.’ (As has already been stated) a ‘This’ is also a ‘That,’ and a ‘That’ is also a ‘This.’ Then in addition, a ‘That,’ as also a ‘This,’ is equally affirmable and deniable, with the result that we cannot infer either that they exist, or that they do not exist. Do not let them get to the point of being a pair of opposites. This is called (reaching) the axis of the Tao; for an axis from the outset is in position at the centre of a circle and meets the requirements of every change endlessly. Since both the right and the wrong are endlessly (changing), therefore I maintain that there is no other way than that of illumination.... The possibility of the possible and the impossibility of the impossible – it is the Tao in action which brings this about. Thus a thing is described as being so [i.e. what it is]. How is it just what it is? Through the so-ness in its being just what it is. How is it not what it is? Through the not-so-ness in its being just so. A thing never varies in having what makes it what it is, nor in having what makes it possible. There is not anything which is not what it is, nor which is impossible. Thus it is that there are roof-slats alongside of solid pillars, ugliness alongside of beauty, and to be great [kuei], to alter [kuei], to flatter [kuei], to be 1 T’ien, the transcendental side to Nature, 176 TAO EXPERTS marvellous [kuei]; 1 all these through Tao have the unity of mutual interpenetration. For a thing to be separated out (from the mass) is for it to become a thing. For it to become a (complete) thing is for it to de-become. Every single thing both becomes and de-becomes, 2 both processes being to and fro in the unity of mutual interpenetration. Only the man of all-embracing intelligence knows this unity of mutual interpenetration. Because he has this intelligence, he cannot be made use of but takes up his abode in its common functioning. His functioning has utility, for to be of (real) use is to interpenetrate and be interpenetrated; and to penetrate and be interpenetrated is to achieve. To arrive at achievement is about all a man can do. Following on from that comes stopping; and to stop without knowing that one is stopping that is – Tao. For a man to wear out his spirit and intelligence in an effort to make a unity of things, and to be ignorant of the fact that they are in agreement, this is to be described by ‘The Morning Three.’ What do I mean by that? Well, there was a certain monkey-keeper who had charge of their diet of acorns. He ordered three in the morning and four at night for each one. The monkeys were all angry about this. The keeper said, ‘Very well, then, you can have four in the morning and three at night.’ The monkeys were all pleased. Thus in name there was actually no change for the worse, whilst scope was given to feelings of pleasure and anger and the arrangement was in conformity with those feelings. It is in this way that sages by means of the surface distinctions of ‘the right’ and ‘the wrong’ make harmony, and yet take their ease in Heaven’s levelling out. By levelling out I mean going two ways at once. 1 The modern pronunciation of these four characters given here as kuei is as follows: k’uei, kuei, ch’ueh, and kuai. The traditional rhyme of the first is k’uei. Chuang Chou’s selection of these four somewhat unconnect- able concepts here is with a view to showing that there must be some connection since the ideographs exist and, what is more, are expressed by the same sound in speech. N.B.– I have no reason to suppose that that sound was actually kuei, but it must have been something like it. 2 The text is emended, a pu being added to the wei to make a double negative. Without this sense seems hardly possible. CHUANG CHOU 177 The knowledge which the men of old had was perfect in one respect. How this was so, is as follows. There were men who held that before there began to be (so many) things (in the world), that was perfection, a state of completion to which nothing could be added. Then there came a second stage in which there were a large number of things, but they had not begun to be carefully differentiated. Next to this came a stage when things were differentiated, but there had not begun to be a distinction between right (things) and wrong (things). This ornamentation (of things) as right and wrong was the process which brought about the waning of the Tao in the world, and the same process brought about the rise of personal preference. And it is equally out of the question to infer either that there really is progress and regress or that there is not. If we say there is, it is a case of ‘Chao’s fine playing of the lute.’ If we say there is not, it is a case of ‘Chao’s inability to play the lute.’ 1 Chao Wen’s playing and Shih Huang’s wielding of the conductor’s baton and Master Hui’s leaning against a Wu tree: the three experts’ knowledge was just more or less. Hence each went on till the last year of his life; but it was only they who prized their knowledge and regarded it as extraordinary compared to any one else’s. Because they prized it they wanted to enlighten people with it. But other people were opposed to their enlightening and enlightening. The result was the confusion worse confounded of Master Hui’s argument about hardness and whiteness – his son (you know) tried for his whole life to reach the conclusion of the argument and failed. If that is the meaning of progress, then I too (in this argument) am adding to the progress. If, however, it may not be described as progress, then there is no progress, not even with me (and my arguing!). These are the reasons why sages aim at the glorious light which comes from slippery doubts. It is why they cannot be used and on the contrary make 1 Chao Wen is said to have been a music master in Cheng State. The reference here seems to be to a divided opinion about him, some, including himself, saying he was a fine player, and some that he was not. 178 TAO EXPERTS their abode in common functioning. I describe this as increasing one’s intelligence. I will illustrate. Here are some words, and I do not know whether they are classifiable or not as right – for any things to -be classifiable and not classifiable is for them together to make a new class, and then they are in the same position as the other classified things. However that may be, allow me to try and say what I want to say. Since there is such a thing as the beginning, there is also such a thing as a beginning before the beginning, and there is also such a thing as a beginning to before the beginning to before the beginning. Since there is such a thing as something, there is also such a thing as nothing; and then, since there is such a thing as before the beginning of something and nothing, there is also such a thing as a beginning to before the beginning of something and nothing. There we are! And I do not know which of the two, something and nothing, is something and which is nothing. Coming to myself and what I have just described, presumably it is a description of something, but I do not know whether it is really something or whether it is really nothing. (It has been argued that) 1 ‘in the world of our experience (there is a sense in which) there is nothing bigger than the tip of a new-grown hair, whilst a great mountain is a tiny thing: that there is no greater age than that of a baby cut off in infancy, whilst Grandfather P’eng (with his 700 years) died in his youth: that heaven and earth were born at the same time that I was, and so all things in nature arid I are one and the same thing.’ Since they are one, you can still find words to express it, can you? 2 And since it has been expressed, can it still be unexpressed? ‘One plus the words about it makes two, and two plus the oneness (of the two) makes three.’ If we go on like this, even the cleverest reckoner breaks down: and how much more the ordinary run of men! 1 There follow quotations from Master Hui and his fellow sophists. 2 Chuang Chou’s position is that the use of words invariably involves comparison. CHUANG CHOU 179 Thus it is that by going on from nothing to something we arrive at three. How much more if we go on from something to something! Don’t let us go on! Let us stop here! The Tao has never begun to have mutually exclusive distinctions. Words, on the other hand, have never begun to have permanency. Because this is so there are lines of division. With your permission I will mention them. The left involves the right. Reasoned statements (about a thing being on the left or the right, etc. etc.) involve judgments. Then divisions of opinion involve arguments. Then controversies involve quarrels. These may be called the Eight To-and-Fro’s. 1 What is beyond the world of space, the sage holds within himself, but he does not reason about it. What is within the world of space he reasons about, but he does not make any judgment on it. About the annals and the records of past kings he makes a judgment, but he does not argue, with the result that division of opinion is not really division of opinion, nor arguing really arguing. How that comes about is by reason of the sage embracing all things. The mass of men argue with a view to demonstrating to each other; which is why I say that arguing is not a revealing process. The supreme 2 Tao cannot be talked about, and the supreme 2 argument does not require speech. (So also) supreme benevolence is not just being charitable, supreme purity not just being disinterested, and supreme courage not just brute violence. If the Tao were to glitter, it would not be the Tao. The speech which argues comes short of what it might be. The benevolence that is stereotyped does not succeed. The purity that is flawless does not engage confidence. The courage that is absolutely unyielding defeats its own end.... Thus it is that he who knows how to stop at what he does not know is perfect. ’Who can know the argument which is not put into speech and the Tao that has no name? If 1 Emending the text as Ma Hsu-lun suggests. 2 The character ta (big) in many contexts' conveys the impression of meaning authoritative or transcendent. 180 TAO EXPERTS there should be the ability to know' in this way, this knowledge might be described as 'the Store of Heaven.’ Pour into it and it does not overflow. Pour out from it and it does not become empty. It does not know the source of its knowing. This is the meaning of ‘storing up the light.’ (A Further Discussion of Rightness and Wrongness.) Yueh Ch’ueh asked Wang Yi if he knew what there was that things had in common. He said, ‘How should I know? Perhaps you know what there is that you do not know?’ Yueh Ch’ueh said, ‘How should I know about that? Does it follow that things are not known?’ Wang Yi said, ‘How should I know? However it may be, I will try and put the matter into speech. Can there be any way by which I may know that what I call knowledge is not really not-knowledge? And can there be any way by which I can know that what I call not-knowledge is not really knowledge? Let me try to ask you some questions. If the people sleep in damp places their loins will hurt and one side of their bodies will be dead. But is that the case with an eel? If a man stays up in a tree, he will get frightened and go all of a tremble. But is that the case with a monkey? Which of these three knows the right place in which to live? Men eat flesh, deer feed on grass, centipedes find snakes sweet, and owls and crows guzzle mice. Which of these four knows the right taste? Monkey mates with monkey, and the buck with the doe. Mao Ch’iang and Li Ch’i [the two famous beauties] are regarded as very beautiful; and yet at the sight of them, fish dived deep into the water, birds flew high into the air, and deer fled from their presence. From my personal point of view, the basic principles of benevolence and justice and all the little tracks of rightness and wrongness are so inextricably confused that it is impossible for me to know how to differentiate them.’ Yueh Ch’ueh said, ‘If you do not know what is profit CHUANG CHOU 181 and what loss, then a perfect man, to be sure, does not know. Is not that so?’ Wang Yi said, ‘The perfect man 1 is a mystery. The great pools might be all scorched up, but he could not feel hot. The great rivers might be all frozen hard, but he could not feel cold. Thunder might split the mountains and the wind lash the sea, but he could have no fear. A man of that kind could mount the clouds and the air and ride the sun and the moon, wandering away beyond the bounds of the Four Seas. Neither Death nor Life brings change in him himself. How much less then can (so-called) principles of profit and loss?’ Master Chu Ch’iao approached Master Chang Wu with a question, saying, ‘I heard from the lips of the Master [Confucius] that when (it is said that) the sage does not occupy himself with mundane affairs: does not seek prost or avoid loss, has no pleasure in the conscious pursuit (of things), does not play the official with the Tao, says nothing and says something, says something and says nothing, and wanders into the beyond, free of the dust and grime of the world: then for him, the Master, these words are quite fantastic. For me, on the other hand, they denote the practice of the mysterious Tao. In what sort of way do you regard this, my dear sir?’ Master Chang Wu said, ‘This is a matter about which the Yellow Emperor 2 was perplexed. How then is Confucius competent to have knowledge on it? Not only so: you also are too hasty in your calculations.... You see a cross-bow and immediately expect broiled duck. I will speak to you inconsequentially on the matter. You listen inconsequentially. ‘Sitting by the sun and the moon! Cradling space and 1 Re chih jen, which I have translated as ‘perfect man’; but this is rather unsatisfactory, in spite of the fact that, as the term got into general circu- lation, it came to have much this meaning. The Taoists invented the term, and I cannot help thinking that the men who first used it thought of chih in its literal sense of ‘arrive’; hence the ‘man who has reached the great objective.’ 2 The mythical Sage-emperor whom the Taoists exalted as the first to know the Tao. 182 TAO EXPERTS time in one’s arms! Blending and harmonizing them! Getting rid of the slippery uncertainties of distinctions and putting menials alongside honourable persons! Everybody babbling away, but the sage a blockhead (with nothing to say), as he mingles a myriad years (in himself) and becomes integrated, complete, balanced, whilst things, as they are, all go on pursuing their courses.’ How do I know that to love life is not to be in a state of illusion? How do I know that to hate death is not like a man who was lost in his childhood and now does not know his way home? Li Chi was the daughter of the warden at Ai. When Chin State first captured her her tears rained down and drenched her coat. But after she had arrived at the palace and had shared the king’s (luxurious) bed and fed on all the rich food, she repented of her tears. How, sir, do you know that the dead do not repent of their original craving for life? The man who dreams at night that he is carousing, may when the morning comes be weeping, whilst the man who dreams he is weeping, may when the morning comes be out hunting. In a dream you do not know that you are dreaming, and you can even divine the dream you are dreaming. It is only when you wake up that you know you have been dreaming. Not only so: there is the great awakening, and then we shall know that all this (present experience) is a great dream. Fools, however, regard themselves as awake now – so personal is their knowledge. It may be as a prince or it may be as a herdsman, but so sure of themselves! Both the Master (Confucius) and you are dreaming; and when I describe you as dreaming, I am also dreaming. And these words of mine are paradoxical: that is the name for them. And a myriad generations will pass before we meet a sage who can explain this, and when we meet him it will be the evening of our little day. Suppose you and I have our argument. If I cannot beat you and you beat me, does it follow that you are right and I am wrong? If you cannot beat me but I beat you, does it follow that I am right and you are wrong? Is one some- CHUANG CHOU 183 times right and sometimes wrong, or are both of us right or both of us wrong? If you and I do not have a common knowledge (about the matter), then other men are bound to be in the dark over it. Whom then can we employ to get to the truth of it? If we should employ a man who agrees with you, or one who agrees with me, or one who disagrees with both of us, or one who agrees with both of us; since one would agree with you and another with me and another disagree with both of us and another agree with both of us, how could any one of them get to the truth of the matter? Does it follow then that I and you and other .men have not got a common knowledge? Are we then all waiting for Something [? Someone] else? Arguing 1 is a relation (in time) of one mutable sound to another. Suppose the sounds are not relative to each other. That would be harmony (as of a chord in music). 2 The achieving of this harmony is by being a babe of Heaven. Conform to that indefinitely: thereby the passage of time is obliterated. That is' the meaning of achieving harmony by being a babe of Heaven? The answer is this: ‘To be’ and ‘not to be’ are respectively ‘being thus’ and ‘not being thus.’ If to be is necessarily to be, then it is different from not to be. About this there can be no argument. Also if being thus is necessarily being thus, then it is different from not being thus. About this also there can be no argument. (That being so,) forget the passage of time, forget argumentative judgments. Be in awe of timelessness. Thus it is that you can dwell in timelessness. A penumbra asked a shadow, saying, ‘There are times when you are moving, times when you are at rest: times when you sit down, times when you stand up. Why do you not work out one method and stick to it?’ The Shadow said, ‘Am I dependent on something else for being what I am? (If so) is the something else on which I am dependent itself dependent on 1 The ensuing passage is a bugbear to the commentators, although the section on the ‘law of identity’ is clear enough. I follow Wang Hsien-ch’ien’s order, but the grammar of this opening sentence seems to me to require a subject and' the natural one is ‘arguing.’ 2 The sense seems to require this addition. 184 TAO EXPERTS something else for being what it is? Am I dependent on the scales of a snake or the wings of a cicada? How can I understand what makes the ‘being thus’ and what makes the 'not being thus’? Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, fluttering here and there just as if he was a butterfly, conscious of following its inclinations. It did not know that it was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he awoke; and then demonstrably he was Chuang Chou. But he does not know now whether he is Chuang Chou who dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he is Chuang Chou. Now Chuang Chou and the butterfly are in relation, so that there must be a distinction between the two. This is what is meant by ‘things being transformed.’ Chapter 3. The Master Principles for the Nourishment of Life. A man who was cook to Prince Wen Hui was cutting up a bullock. The blow by his hand, the thrust from his shoulder, the stamp of his foot, the heave with his knee, the whish of the flesh coming away, and the whistle of his knife going in were all perfectly in time, having the rhythm of the Dance of the Mulberry Grove, and exactly in time like the chords of the Ching Shou. The Prince said, ‘How excellent, that you should reach this pitch of perfection!’ The cook put down his chopper and said, ‘The thing that your humble servant delights in is something higher than art, namely the Tao. When I first began to cut up bullocks, what I saw was just a bullock. After three years I no longer saw a bullock as a whole, and now I work by the spirit and not by the sight of my eyes. My senses have learnt to stop and let the spirit carry on. I rely on the Heaven-given structure of a bullock. I press the big tendons apart and follow along the big openings, conforming to the lines which must be followed.... A good cook gets a new chopper every year; and this is because he cuts. CHUANG CHOU 185 A poor cook gets a new chopper every month; and this is because he hacks. But the chopper belonging to your humble servant has been in use for nineteen years. It has cut up several thousand bullocks, but its edge is as keen as if it had just come from the whetstone. There is a space .between the joints, and the edge of the chopper is very thin. I put this thinness into the space, enlarging it as I go; and there is bound to be plenty of room for the blade.... Nevertheless, every time I come to something intricate, I take a look at the difficulty. Apprehension .calls for caution. My eyes dwell on it, and I act very slowly. The movement of the chopper is imperceptible, and by degrees it all comes away like bundling soil from the earth. I then lift the chopper out and stand up and look all around with the satisfaction of victory. Then I wipe the chopper and put it away.’ Prince Wen Hui exclaimed, ‘Excellent! I hear what a cook has to say, and I have learnt how to nourish life.’ When Kung Wen Hsien saw a certain official he was horrified and said, ‘Who is he? How is it that he has only one foot? Is this Heaven’s doing or man’s?’ The answer was, ‘Heaven’s doing, not man’s. Heaven’s way is to create individuals. A man’s outward appearance is a given thing. Thus we know that this is Heaven’s doing, not man’s.’ The marsh pheasant has to take ten steps for every peck and a hundred steps for every sip, but it does not beg to be kept in a cage. The food 1 there might be royal food, but it would not be good food (for the pheasant). When Lao Tan 2 died, Ch’in Shih went to mourn over him. After three moans he went away. A disciple said, ‘Were you not a friend of the Master?’ Ch’in Shih said, ‘Yes.’ The disciple said, ‘If so, then is it proper to mourn only in this fashion?’ Ch’in Shih said, ‘At first I took you to be Lao Tan’s men. Now, no. A moment ago when I was inside to mourn, there were old men bewailing Lao Tan as if bewailing the loss of a son, young men bewailing 1 The shen in the text seems quite impossible. I emend to shan. 2 Traditionally accounted to be the first of the great Taoist Masters. 186 TAO EXPERTS him as if bewailing the loss of a mother. The reason why they came together, unquestionably was that they had untimely words to say, untimely tears to shed. This is to skulk out of the sight of Heaven, to fly in the face of facts, to forget what you have received. 1...When he happened to come, it was the right time for the Master. When he happened to go, it was the inevitable course for the Master. Find your peace in the right time: make your home in the inevitable, and grief and joy cannot intrude. The ancients said of death that it was the cutting of bonds by the Omnipotent. There is an end to the fingers which feed the twigs to the fire; but the fire is transmitted, and no one knows when it will be put out.’ 1 Whether from Heaven or from Lao Tan is not clear. Chapter 4. The Human World. Yen Hui went to see Chung Ni 1 to ask leave to go away. Chung Ni asked him where he was going, and Yen Hui answered that he was going to Wei State. ‘With what object?’ asked Chung Ni. Yen Hui said, ‘I hear that the Prince of Wei is in the vigour of his youth and his actions self-willed. He is unconcerned about his country and will not see his faults. He is unconcerned about his people dying, so that the dead are lying everywhere all over the country; the condition of the people is incomparably bad. I once heard you, Master, say that one should leave the well-governed country and go to the country which is in confusion. It is the doctor’s door which has a crowd of sick people before it. I want to take what I have heard (from you) and think out its basic principles. Perhaps there is some cure for Wei State.’ Chung Ni said, ‘Alas, the danger is that you will go and only bring punishment on yourself. The right way does not allow of other things being mixed in with it. If they are mixed in, then the right way becomes a number of 1 i.e. Confucius, referred to without any title. Yen Hui was the man whom Confucius regarded as the best of his disciples. The incident here is to be taken as fictitious, Confucius being made to say things which showed that the Taoist way was better than the Confucianist. CHUANG CHOU 187 ways. That entails confusion, and confusion harasses the mind. With a harassed mind there is no saving anything. The perfect man in the old days was first concerned about himself before he started being concerned about others. So long as there was any doubt about himself (and his true good), he certainly had no leisure to attend to the actions of violent men. Further, have you any idea what wastes the virtue in a man, or what brings knowledge into existence? Virtue is wasted through the desire for fame. Knowledge comes into existence through contention. Fame means men crushing each other, and knowledge is the tool of contention. Both fame and knowledge are indeed instruments of evil and not what should come into perfect action. Further, there may be men of solid virtue and unfailing sincerity, not permeated with mortal humours, not striving over fame, not imbued with a mortal mind; and yet they may force their rule-of-thumb speeches about moral ideals upon bragging violent men. They are rightly called calamity men, for those who bring calamities on other men are bound to bring calamities back on themselves. I am afraid that is what you [Yen Hui] will be. The lust for fame! The sages failed to conquer this in other men. How much will you fail (with the Prince of Wei)? But I think you must have some plan in mind. Come, try to tell me about it.’ Yen Hui said, ‘Gravity of demeanour, dispassionateness, energy, and singleness of purpose. 1 Will this be right?’ Chung Ni said, ‘Terrible! How can it possibly be right? The prince is a masterful man and amply shows it. His moods are uncertain, and, since he is never contradicted by the men continually around him, he tramples on other people’s feelings for the express purpose of easing his own. We can define him as a man who cannot accomplish the little daily accessions of virtue and is, therefore, all the more 1 There is evidence, though of a little later date, that Confucianists often gave a bad impression through their pompous moral talk. It is difficult to believe that Chuang Chou is not here taking them off. 188 TAO EXPERTS incapable of really great virtue. He will stubbornly refuse to be converted. If he should agree with you outwardly, inwardly he will not condemn himself. How can you do anything with him?’ Yen Hui said, ‘If that be the case, then I will be inwardly uncompromising and outwardly appear to compromise, and I will substantiate (my words) by appealing to the past. As for being inwardly uncompromising I shall be a disciple of Heaven; and the man who is that knows that the Son of Heaven and himself are both treated as sons by Heaven. Will a man like the prince be so individualistic as not to care whether his words win approval or disapproval from men? If he is so, then people will call him a mere child. This is what I mean by being a disciple of Heaven. As for outwardly appearing to compromise, I shall be a disciple of men, bowing and scraping with the manners of a minister. What other men do, may I not do? And when I do what others do, will they censure me for it? This is what I mean by being a disciple of men. As for substantiating (my words) by appealing to the past, I shall be a disciple of antiquity. Although I shall speak with moral authority and make actual condemnations, it will not be I but antiquity doing it. In this way although I be upright I shall not be disliked. This is what I mean by being a disciple of antiquity. Will something like this be right?’ Chung Ni said, ‘How can it possibly be right? There is too much putting of things to rights and no spying out of weak spots. You may be persistent, but there will be no bad conscience resulting. However things may go, you will only come to a standstill. (The problem is,) how is it possible to make the prince change himself as if his own mind was teaching him?’ Yen Hui said, ‘I can go no further. I venture to ask you for the right plan.’ Chung Ni said, ‘Fast! And I will tell you that where there is fasting it is no easy matter. If a man does make an easy matter of it “the shining heavens contradict him.”’ Yen Hui said, ‘My family is poor. For a number of CHUANG CHOU 189 months I have not tasted either wine or meat. May this be taken as fasting?’ Chung Ni said, ‘This is the fasting in relation to sacrificing. It is not fasting of the mind.... Integrate your will. (Thus) do not listen with your ears, but listen with your mind. Do not listen with your mind, but listen with your vital force. Ordinary sense-hearing does not go beyond the ears, and the mind does not go beyond symbols [i.e. ideas about things not actualities]. The vital force is entirely negative and waits on things (outside one’s self). The Tao brings together all negativeness (in itself), and this negativeness is the fasting of the mind.’ Yen Hui said, ‘I have not begun to set this process going, SYMBOL 183 \f "Symbol" \s 2 \h and the truth is, it is because I am myself, an individual. If I had set this process going, there would have been no Hui, an individual. Is it right to speak of negativeness?’ The Master said, ‘Entirely right! I will tell you. If you can go in and wander freely in this prince’s cage without affecting his reputation in any way; being (caged up) inside and yet crowing cheerfully, not being (caged up) inside and yet continually there, 1 with no depression and no malice, this being your entire home in spite of your living there being because you cannot help it: (if you can do this) then you will be near to success. To take no steps at all is easy: to walk without touching the ground, that is the difficulty. Also if you act under the compulsion of men, there is no difficulty about pretending; but there is if you act under the compulsion of Heaven. We have heard of flying with wings, but not of flying without them, I have heard of knowing with knowledge, but not of knowing without knowledge.... A second anecdote follows, in which Confucius appears again as the central figure. This time he is approached by an official to whom a state mission has been entrusted, and who is very worried over its difficulty. The advice Confucius is represented as giving has, of course, a strong Taoist twist to it. In some of the sentiments, however, the Confucianists’ mind peeps out. The following is a good example of the two strains. 1 By substituting erh for tse in these two clauses it is possible to get a likely meaning without attaching forced meanings to the other words. SYMBOL 183 \f "Symbol" \s 10 \h 190 TAO EXPERTS Chung Ni said, ‘Our human world has two moral safe-guards, the one fate, the other duty. A child’s love of its parents is fate; and it is impossible for the child’s heart to be loosed from this love. A subject’s service of his prince is duty. Go where you will there is a prince, so that this duty is inescapable between heaven and earth. These are the two moral safeguards. Therefore, to serve one’s parents in contentment without regard to the place, this is the height of filial piety. To serve one’s prince in contentment without regard to the business entailed, this is the supreme exhibition of loyalty. So, (in any difficult business such as a state commission,) in the service of your heart to have no change in your emotions from what they were before, to know what is inevitable in the business and be content with these conditions as your fate, this is the height of virtue. As a subject or a son a man constantly has business forced on him; but in dealing with the actualities of the business he can forget his own personal concerns, and so has no leisure for loving.life or hating death. It is quite possible, sir, to go forward.... Ride events with a free mind. Rely on the unavoidable to nourish centrality (of mind). This is perfection.’ Chapter 6. The Great Father of All Teachers. The man who knows the actions of Heaven and knows the actions of men, that man is perfect. To know the actions of Heaven is to be Heaven and alive. To know men’s actions is to feed what is unknown by means of what is known; and to reach the end of one’s natural span pit. Heaven’s years] without being cut off half-way. This is to advance in knowledge. (The Nature of True Knowledge is to be learnt from the Nature of the True Man.) None the less there is cause for anxiety. For knowledge to become exact, knowledge depends on something else, CHUANG CHOU 191 though what it depends on is far from being certain. How do we know that what we call Heaven is not man, and what we call man is not Heaven? Well, there is the true man before there is true knowledge: and (the question is) what is meant by a true man. The true man of antiquity did not go counter to the few. He had no heroic achievements. He made no plans. Being what he was, when he made mistakes he did not regret them. When he was exactly right, he was not self-complacent. Being what he was, he could scale the heights without losing his nerve, could enter water without feeling wet, enter fire without feeling hot. This is the man whose knowledge can get higher in the Tao. The true man of antiquity had no dreams while he slept and woke up without any feeling of anxiety. In eating he had no sense of the sweet. His breathing was deep; for the true man breathes from his heels, whilst in most people their breathing is from their throats, and the man who is crushed by defeat retches his words out as if he were vomiting. For a man’s passions to go deep is for his instinct of vital resilience [lit. heavenly spring] to be shallow. The true man of antiquity was not conscious of loving life and hating death. As life opened out, he did not. long for joy. As he entered (the shadow of death) he did not hang back. Like a bird he flew away, just as like a bird he came: that was all. He did not forget his beginning, or have any desire about what his end might be. He received (what came to him) and took pleasure in it; and then he forgot it and received it again. That. is to say, he did not injure the Tao with his (conscious) mind, nor did he supplement Heaven with man. This is what is meant by a true man. Being what he was, he was absent-minded, 1 his manner tranquil, with a pure brow as cool as autumn and as mild as spring, in his joy and anger following the movement of the four seasons, and so fitting in with things [i.e. his environment] that he was not conscious of any limit to his 1 Accepting Wang Mou-hung’s emendation of chih to wang. 192 TAO EXPERTS doing so. Thus it is that a sage in his employment of arms might destroy a country and yet not lose the affection of the people. His benefits might flow down through a myriad ages and yet he not be consciously fond of men. And thus it is that deliberately to rejoice in being impregnated with things is to be anything but a sage: deliberately to be attached to people is to be anything but benevolent: deliberately to wait for heaven-given opportunities is to be anything but a wise man: deliberately to make profit in one direction in order not to entail loss in another is to be anything but a man of practical principles; just as to lose one’s self for the sake of one’s reputation is to be anything but a good public servant, and to destroy one’s character and be unprincipled is to be anything but a good private servant. Men like Hu Pu Chieh, Wu Kuang, Po I, Shu Ch’i, Chi Tzu, Hsu Yu, Chi T’o, and Shen T’u Ti were the servants of servants, were Yes-men to Yes-men and so did not say Yes to what was affirmed in themselves. Thus it is that what the true man liked was reduced to one (thing) and what he did not like was reduced to one (thing); and, since the one and its antithesis are equally one, in the one respect the true man acts as a disciple of Heaven and in the other respect he acts as a disciple of men. In him neither Heaven [i.e. the transcendent and integrated element in Nature] nor man [i.e. the human and unintegrated element in Nature] conquers the other. This what is meant by a true man. Life and death are both (matters of) fate. They have the regularity of night succeeding day; for Heaven is what man cannot interfere with in the actuality of all creation. Those men who in a special way regard Heaven as Father and have, as it were, a personal love for it, how much more should they love what is above (Heaven as Father)! Other men in a special way regard their rulers as better than themselves, and they, as it were, personally die for them. How much more should they die for what is truer than a CHUANG CHOU 193 ruler! When the springs dry up, the fish are all together on dry land. They then moisten each other with .their dampness and keep each other wet with their slime. But this is not to be compared with their forgetting each other in a river or a lake. The same with (everybody) praising the Sage-king Yao and denouncing the villain Chieh: it is better to forget them both and transmute their different ways. The Great Mass loads me up with a body, gives me the labour of living, eases me off with old age, and gives me rest with death. Thus it is that that which makes my life a good is also that which makes my death a good. A man’s property is said to be safe enough when his boat is laid up in a creek and his fishing net put by in shallow water. But a strong man can come in the middle of the night and carry these things off without the sleepers knowing anything about it. In storing things, whether small ones or big, there is a question as to the right way. There is a chance of their being lost. Suppose, then, you store up man’s world in man’s world, is there no chance of its being lost? This is the great fact about things and their continuity. Thus, although to be patterned in the form of a man is something to be more or less pleased about, the source of joy beyond all reckoning lies in the fact that a thing like man’s body has a myriad transformations, and there never has been any limit to them. Thus it is that a sage wanders freely in the fact that things cannot be lost but are all preserved. To him to die young, to grow old, the beginning and the end of life are all good; and other men should copy them in this. How much more should they copy that which is the link of all creation, that on which the one and only process of evolution depends. The Tao has reality and evidence, but it has no (specific) action, no specific form. It can be transmitted, but it cannot be (consciously) received. It can be attained, but it cannot be seen (when it is obtained). It is self-rooted and existed before the heavens and the earth. From of old it has continued without ceasing. It is the gods, the Divine 194 TAO EXPERTS Ruler. It produced the heavens: it produced the earth. It is above the highest and lowest points in space, although it is neither high nor low. Existing before the heavens and the earth and older than the oldest antiquity, it is neither old nor shows signs of age. Hsi Wei obtained it and thereby adjusted the heavens and the earth. Fu Hsi obtained it and thereby gave a double origin to matter. 1 The Great Bear obtained it and so has never left its course. The sun and moon obtained it and so have never ceased (revolving). K’an P’i 2 obtained it and thereby entered the heart of the world [lit. the K’un Lun Mountains]. Feng Yi obtained it and thereby wandered by the Great River. Chien Wu obtained it and thereby made his home on Mount Tai. The Yellow Emperor obtained it and thereby ascended the cloudy heavens. Chuan Hsu obtained it and thereby made his home in the Dark Palace. Yu Ch’iang obtained it and stood by the North Pole. Hsi Wang Niu obtained it and so gained her seat on the Shao Kuang, and no one knows her beginning or her end. Grandfather P’eng obtained it and so lived from the age of Shun to the age of the Five Princes. Fu Yueh obtained it and there- by became Wu Teng’s minister and 'soothed the whole country. (When he died) he mounted this and that con- stellation and put himself on a level with the stars. Nan Po Tzu Kuei asked Nu Chu how it was that he, an old man, yet had the face of a child. The reply was that he had heard of the Tao, at which Nan Po Tzu Kuei asked him whether he could learn the Tao. Nu Chu said, ‘How can you? You are not its kind of man. Pu Liang Yi had the gifts of a sage but not the Tao of a sage, whilst I have the Tao of a sage but not the gifts I wished to teach him in the hope that he might perhaps become a real sage. .. I held him for three days under my teaching, after which he was able to pay no attention to the human world. He having reached this stage, I held him for seven days, 1 This appears to be a reference to Fu Hsi as the discoverer of the Yin and the Yang. 2 The spirit of the mountains, with the face of a man and the body of an animal CHUANG CHOU 195 after which he was able to pay no attention to (external) objects (of any kind). He having reached this stage, I held him for nine days, after which he* was able to pay no atten- tion to his own existence. After that he was illumined. Being in a state of illumination be was able to see oneness. Being able to see oneness, he was then able,to have no past and present. Having no past and present, he was then a le to enter into not-dying and not-living, in which state the destruction of life is not death and increase of life is not life. As a thing himself he was always in company (with other things) and always welcoming them, always being destroyed and always being completed. The name of this state of being is “babe-like peace”; and the man with this peace is a babe on the way to completeness.’ Tzu Ssu, Tzu Yu, Tzu Li, and Tzu Lai, four men in con- versation with each other, said that whoever could make nothing the head (of existence), life the backbone, and death the rump, whoever knew that life and death, survival and non-survival were all one body, that man was their friend. They then looked at each other and smiled, for they were in complete agreement. Consequently they became friends. Not long afterwards Tzu Yu fell ill and Tzu Ssu went to inquire about him. His back was all hunched up, his five viscera all raised up, his cheeks down by his navel, his shoulders above the top of his head, with a huge wen point- ing to the sky, all the vital energy of the Yin and Yang in disorder in him. But his mind was not in the least per- turbed by this. He limped along to a well and looked at himself and exclaimed, ‘How amazing of the Creator of things to make me deformed in this way! Why should I dislike it? Supposing my left arm were to be transformed into a cock, the result would be that I should mark the time at night. Supposing my right shoulder were transformed into a cross-bow, the result would be that I should get broiled duck. Supposing that my buttocks were trans- formed into a wheel and my spirit into a horse, the result would be that I should ride in my carriage. How could there be anything more honourable than that? What is 196 TAO EXPERTS more, to gain is to hit the right moment, to lose is to accept the inevitable: to be content with the good fortune and to be at home with the bad is to keep sorrow and joy at a distance; and this was described of old as liberation. The men who cannot liberate themselves are entangled in material things; and, what is more still, Heaven continues, and things do not equal Heaven in that. Why should I dislike what has happened?’ [When Tzu Lai fell ill, Tzu Li went to inquire and found him at the point of death. He told the wife and children that there was no reason to be distressed over the transformation that death was, and wondered what dao hua (evolution) would make of his friend, perhaps the liver of a rat or the arm of an insect.] Tzu Lai said, ‘Wherever it may be, north, south, east, or west, when a father or mother gives orders to a son, he obeys. The Yin and Yang are equally a man’s father and mother. If they bring me to the point of death and I am unwilling, then I am being headstrong. They do no wrong to me. Take now a great ironsmith smelting metal; if the metal should leap up and say, “I must be made into an Excalibur,” the great smith would be bound to regard the metal as ill-omened. So now, the moment there comes an attack on a man’s body, to insist that it must continue as a man, this would make the Creator of things see him as a damnable fellow. So now the moment we take heaven and earth as a great melting-pot and evolution as a great smelting, how can we object to going away (to somewhere else)? Completed as we are, we go to sleep: passing out as we do, we awake.’ Tzu Yu and Tzu Sang were friends, and once when it had been raining for ten days Tzu Yu became alarmed lest his friend was ill; so he prepared some food to take to him. When he arrived at the door of the house, there was a sound of something between singing and moaning with the play.ing of a lute: ‘O father, O mother, O Heaven, O man!’ The voice was hardly audible and the rhythm was uneven. Tzu CHUANG CHOU 197 Yu went in and asked Tzu Sang why he was singing in this way. The reply was, ‘I am thinking who it is who has . brought me to this pitch of distress; and I cannot think who it is. My father and mother surely could not wish me to be without means of living. Heaven covers all things and Earth supports all things without any partiality. Surely they could not wish me in particular to be without the means of living. I want to know who is responsible for this, but I cannot discover. But there must be somebody who has brought me to this pass. It is fate.’ Chapter 7. To Fulfil (the Government) of the (Real) Kings. Yeh Ch’ueh 1 went to put problems to Wang Yi. He put four such, but Wang Yi did not know about any of them. Yeh Ch’ueh danced with joy over this and told Pu Yi Tzu. Pu Yi Tzu said, ‘So you only know this now? The Sage-king Shun did not compare with Fu Hsi. Shun was all for benevolence in his devotion to men, and what is more, he won their devotion, but he never began to get out into the not-man [? part of the universe]. Fu Hsi slept gently and awoke with a long stare. At one time he would take himself to be a horse, at another an ox. His knowledge was actual and to be trusted, the virtue in him immensely true; but he never began to get inside the not-man.' Chien Wu 2 went to see K’uang Chieh Yu. Chieh Yu asked him what Yueh Chung Shih had been talking to him about; and Chien Wu replied that he had told him about rulers and their making themselves as patterns in relation to the laws they promulgated, so that nobody dared disobey or change them. K’uang Chieh Yu said, ‘This is the very deception of moral power. All this governing of the Great Society is like trying to wade through the sea, or to bore a hole 1 These three names are probably parabolical: thus Yeh Ch’ueh, Get his-teeth-into-people’s-deficiencies; Wang Yi, Kingly-littleness; Pu Yi Tzu, Teacher-who-wore-clothes-of-rushes. 2 For these names I suggest Burdened-with-himself, Made-welcome-the- weight(-of-things), and Talk-on-middles-and-beginnings. 198 TAO EXPERTS through a river, or to set a mosquito to work on carrying a mountain. The control exercised by the sages was outside political controlling. It consisted in getting on the right basis before they did anything, in being quite certain one can do what has to be done. You see, a bird flies high to avoid injury from bolt or dart; and a mouse burrows deep into the sacrificial mound to avoid the danger of being smoked or dug out. And do sages not compare with these two creatures?’ T’ien Keng 1 was wandering in the neighbourhood of Yin Yang and came to the river Liao. There he happened to meet a man without a name whom he asked about society. The man without a name replied, ‘Go away, you low fellow. Why this ill-prepared question? I was just about to companion the Creator of all. If I renounce the world, I can ride on the bird of unself-consciousness and go out beyond space, wander in the village of Nowhere and make my home in the open country of Emptiness. Why do you come troubling me with making order in society? Set your mind to wander in simplicity, harmonize yourself with non-distinction. Follow things as they are and do not give way to personal bias. Society will thus be ordered.’ Yang Tzu Chu went to see Lao Tan and said, ‘Suppose we have a man, vigorous and self-reliant, far-sighted and indefatigable in learning sound principles. Would such a man compare with the wise kings (of old)?’ Lao Tan said, ‘Compared with a sage, such a man would be just an underling, a hand in a workshop, slaving away in a state of apprehension. Besides, because of their beautiful markings tigers and leopards are hunted down, and monkeys and dogs are kept on chains because they are clever at talking and catching rats. Are creatures to be' compared with the wise kings?’ Yang Tzu Chu looked dissatisfied and begged for an exposition of the wise kings’ government. Lao Tan said, ‘Their government was one of achievements which covered 1 I suggest ‘the man who wanted to have his roots in Heaven,' i.e. one of those persevering people who appear as butts in this book, men who want to do the right but are conventionally-minded. CHUANG CHOU 199 the whole Great Society but which did not appear to come from them. They turned natural things into articles of use so that the people could look after themselves. There were some whose names are not even known. They just made everything pleased with itself, whilst they maintained their poise in the incommensurable, and wandered in the non-existent.’ (The following is in the first person, presumably from Chuang Chou himself.) Inaction is the real part 1 of fame, the storehouse of all plans, the responsible head of all business, the master of all knowledge. Identify yourself completely with infinity-eternity and wander in the non-self. Carry to the highest what you have received from Heaven but do not reveal your success in this. Be empty: that is all. The perfect man’s use of his mind is like a mirror. He does not anticipate (events), nor does he go counter to them. He responds but he does not retain. Thus it is that he is able .to master things and not be injured by them. The sovereign of the Southern Sea is called Dissatisfaction (with things as they are), the sovereign of the Northern Sea, Revolution, the Sovereign of the Centre of the World, Chaos. Dissatisfaction and Revolution from time to time met together in the territory of Chaos, and Chaos treated them very hospitably. The two sovereigns planned how to repay Chaos’s kindness. They said, ‘Men all have seven holes to their bodies for seeing, hearing, eating and breathing. Our friend here has none of these., Let us try to bore some holes in him.’ Each day they bored one hole. On the seventh day Chaos died. 1 Emending the character for 'corpse’ (shih) to that for ‘real’ (shih).