Gengsang Chu

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Among Lao Dan’s servants was a man named Gengsang Chu, who had obtained only a part of Lao Dan’s Way and went north to live on Mount Weilei. He sent away those servants who were sharp and conspicuously clever; he kept at a distance those concubines who were high-flown and conspicuously benevolent. He lived with the lumpish and simple, and employed the busy and toil-worn. After three years, Weilei had a great harvest.

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The people of Weilei said to one another: ‘When Master Gengsang first arrived, we were startled and thought him extraordinary. Now if we reckon by the day, it seems insufficient; if we reckon by the year, it is more than enough. Perhaps he is a sage! Why do you not all join together to set him up as a corpse-representative and pray to him, and make him the god of soil and grain?’

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When Gengsangzi heard this, he faced south and was not at ease. His disciples thought it strange. Gengsangzi said: ‘Why should you disciples be surprised at me? When the spring qi rises, the hundred grasses grow; when autumn duly arrives, the myriad treasures ripen. Could spring and autumn be so without having obtained anything? The Way of Heaven has already moved.’

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I have heard that the Perfect Man dwells like a corpse in a room enclosed by four walls, while the common people roam wild and do not know where they are going. Now the petty people of Weilei secretly wish to honor me with sacrificial vessels among the worthies—am I a man to be used as a measure? This is why I cannot let go of the words of Lao Dan.

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The disciple said, “Not so. In a ditch a few yards wide, a huge fish has nowhere to turn its body, yet loaches and minnows can make their home there; on a mound a few paces high, a huge beast has nowhere to hide its body, yet baleful foxes find it an auspicious place. Moreover, honoring the worthy and employing the capable, putting goodness and benefit first—since ancient times Yao and Shun were like this; how much more the people of Weilei! Master, you should listen to them!”

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Gengsangzi said, “Come, little ones! A beast that can swallow a cart, if it leaves the mountain alone, cannot escape the trouble of nets and snares; a fish that can swallow a boat, if it is cast up and loses the water, then ants can torment it. Therefore birds and beasts do not tire of height, fish and turtles do not tire of depth. As for the person who would keep his body and life whole, in hiding himself he does not tire of depth and remoteness—that is all!”

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Moreover, how could those two men deserve praise? In their disputation they would recklessly bore through walls and plant weeds; they pick out hairs to comb and count grains of rice to cook—how petty and fussy! How could they save the world? Promote the worthy, and the people crush one another; employ cleverness, and the people steal from one another. These several things are not enough to enrich the people.

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The people are very diligent in the pursuit of profit: among sons there are those who kill their fathers, and among ministers those who kill their rulers. They rob in broad daylight and bore through walls at noon. I tell you: the root of great disorder must arise between Yao and Shun, and its aftermath will endure a thousand generations later. After a thousand generations, there will surely be people who eat one another.

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Nan Rong Chu’s expression changed; he sat upright and said, “I, Chu, am already advanced in years. Where then should I entrust my efforts so as to attain these words?”

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Gengsangzi said, “Keep your form whole, embrace your life, and do not let your thoughts be busily restless. If you go on like this for three years, then you may be able to reach these words.”

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Nanrong Chu said, “The eyes and the form—I do not know how they differ, yet the blind cannot see themselves; the ears and the form—I do not know how they differ, yet the deaf cannot hear themselves; the heart and the form—I do not know how they differ, yet the mad cannot get hold of themselves. Form and form are also close to each other, but perhaps something comes between them?”

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They wish to seek one another, yet cannot obtain one another. Now you say to Chu, ‘Keep your form whole, embrace your life, and do not let your thoughts be busily restless.’

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I, Chu, have made an effort to hear the Way, but it has reached my ears only!

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Gengsangzi said, “My words are exhausted. A solitary wasp cannot transform a bean-leaf caterpillar; a Yue chicken cannot hatch a swan’s eggs, but a Lu chicken certainly can. As chickens compared with chickens, their nature is not different; that some can and some cannot is because their capacities are inherently great or small. Now my capacity is small and insufficient to transform you. Why do you not go south to see Laozi?”

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Nan Rong Chu carried provisions and, after seven days and seven nights, arrived at Laozi’s place. Laozi said, “Have you come from Chu’s place?”

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Nan Rong Chu said, “Yes.”

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Laozi said, “Why have you come with so many people?”

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Nanrong Chu, startled, looked behind him. Laozi said, “Do you not know what I am saying?”

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Nanrong Chu bowed his head in shame, then raised it and sighed, saying, “Just now I forgot my answer, and thereby lost my question.”

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Laozi said, “What do you mean?”

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Nanrong Chu said, “If I do not know, people call me dull-witted; if I know, knowing instead brings grief to my body. If I am not benevolent, I harm others; if I am benevolent, being benevolent instead brings grief to myself. If I am not righteous, I injure others; if I am righteous, being righteous instead brings grief to myself. How can I escape these and be all right? These three sayings are what trouble me, Nanrong Chu. I would like to ask Laozi about these matters through Gengsang Chu.”

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Laozi said, “A moment ago I saw you between your brows and lashes, and by that I already understood you. Now you speak again, and this confirms it. You are agitated as if you had lost your parents, lifting a pole to search for them in the sea. You are a lost person! Dazed and confused, you wish to return to your own nature, but you have no way in—how pitiful!”

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Nan Rong Chu asked to enter and take up lodging; he summoned what he liked and removed what he disliked. After ten days he had made himself miserable, and he went again to see Laozi. Laozi said: 'You have washed yourself clean—how gloomy you still are! Yet within you, welling up, there is still aversion.'

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One bound by externals cannot be grasped by multiplicity; he will bolt himself shut within. One bound by internals cannot be grasped by entanglements; he will bolt himself shut without. One bound both outside and inside—even the Way and Virtue cannot hold him, much less one who follows the Way and acts!

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Nan Rong Chu said: 'A villager was ill, and a fellow villager asked after him. The sick man could speak of his illness, but that which in his illness makes it illness was still not ill. If I, Chu, hear the Great Way, it will be like drinking medicine to make the illness worse. I only wish to hear the guideline for guarding life, nothing more.'

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Laozi said: “The constant way of guarding life: Can you embrace the One? Can you not lose it? Can you know auspicious and inauspicious without divination? Can you stop? Can you cease? Can you set aside seeking from others and seek within yourself? Can you be free and detached? Can you be simple and unknowing? Can you be like an infant?”

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'The infant wails all day and its throat does not become hoarse—this is the utmost harmony. It clutches all day and its hands do not become cramped—this is because it shares its virtue. It looks all day and its eyes do not blink—because its attention is not fixed on the outside. When it walks, it does not know where it is going; when it stays, it does not know what it is doing. It winds along with things and rides the same waves. This is the guideline for guarding life.'

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Nanrong Chu said, “Then is this the virtue of the Perfect Man?”

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He said, “No. This is what is called ice melting and frost thawing—can you do it? As for the Perfect Man, he eats with others from the earth and rejoices with them in Heaven; he does not let the profit and harm of people and things entangle him; he does not join others in making prodigies, does not join them in plotting, does not join them in busy affairs. Freely he goes; in simple unawareness he comes. This is called the guiding principle of guarding life.”

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He asked, “Then does this reach the ultimate?”

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He said, “Not yet. I already told you: ‘Can you be like an infant?’”

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One who is like an infant does not know what he is doing when he moves, nor where he is going when he walks. His body is like a branch of a withered tree, and his heart is like dead ashes. For one like this, misfortune does not come, nor does good fortune. With neither misfortune nor good fortune, how could there be human calamity?

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One whose mind is calm and settled gives forth a heavenly light. One who gives forth a heavenly light is seen by people as a person and by things as a thing. If a person cultivates himself, only then does he have constancy. One who has constancy is one in whom people find shelter, and Heaven helps him. The one in whom people find shelter is called a person of Heaven; the one whom Heaven helps is called a son of Heaven.

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The learner learns what he cannot learn; the doer does what he cannot do; the debater debates what he cannot debate. To know to stop at what one cannot know is the utmost. If there are any who do not take this as right, Heaven’s balance will ruin them. Prepare things to sustain the body; hide in the unanticipated to give life to the heart; revere the inner to reach the other—

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If this is so and ten thousand evils arrive, they are all from Heaven, not from man; they are not enough to disrupt what is complete, and cannot be admitted into the Spiritual Terrace. The Spiritual Terrace has something it holds, yet it does not know what it holds, and it is what cannot be held. Without seeing one's own truth and then issuing forth, every issuing forth is inappropriate; when matters enter and are not let go, every change becomes a fault.

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Those who do what is not good in the open, men can seize and punish them; those who do what is not good in dark concealment, ghosts can seize and punish them. One who is clear about men and clear about ghosts can then walk alone. Those whose tally is within walk in the nameless; those whose tally is without set their wills on anticipated expenses.

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One who walks in the nameless—only the ordinary has radiance; one whose aims rest on calculated costs and gains is merely a merchant. People see him on tiptoe, yet still think him towering. One who follows things through to their end—things enter into him; one who is merely careless with things cannot contain himself, so how could he accommodate others? One who cannot contain others has no kin; one without close ties is cut off from human society.

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No weapon is more cruel than the will; the Moye sword ranks below it. No enemy is greater than yin and yang; between heaven and earth there is nowhere to escape. It is not yin and yang that harm him; the mind makes it so.

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The Way runs through the divisions of things; where there is completion, there is destruction. What people dislike about division is that in division they seek completeness. Why dislike completeness? Because there is something by which it is complete. Thus, when it goes out and does not return, one sees its ghost. When it goes out and obtains, this is called obtaining death. To be extinguished yet have substance is one kind of ghost. By using the formed to image the formless, one becomes settled.

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It issues forth without a root and enters without an opening. It has reality but no location; it has duration but no beginning or end. What issues forth without an opening nevertheless has reality. That which has reality but no location is space; that which has duration but no beginning or end is time. There is birth and there is death; there is emergence and there is entry. Entering and emerging without its form being seen—this is called the Gate of Heaven.

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The Gate of Heaven is non-being. The myriad things come forth from non-being. Being cannot make being out of being; it must come forth from non-being—and non-being is itself without being. The sage hides in this.

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The ancients' knowledge had reached a limit. Where did it reach? Some held that there had never begun to be things: perfect, exhaustive, nothing could be added. Next, they held that there were things, and would regard life as a loss and death as a return—this already involves division. Next, they said: at first there was non-being; then there was life, and once alive it soon died.

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Take nonbeing as the head, life as the body, and death as the rump. Whoever knows that being and nonbeing, death and life are guarded as one—I will be his friend. Though these three are different, they belong to the same ducal clan. Zhao and Jing are noted for their caps; the Jia clan is noted for its fief: they are not one.

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There is life: it is a dark speck; splitting apart, people say 'shifting this.' To try to speak of 'shifting this' is not something that can be spoken. Even so, it is unknowable. At the winter sacrifice there are stomach and feet: they can be separated, yet cannot be separated. One who views a house goes all around the bedchamber and ancestral temple, and then goes to its privy! It is for this that 'shifting this' is raised.

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Let me try to explain 'shifting this': it takes life as the root, takes knowledge as its teacher, and so rides on right and wrong. If names and actualities truly exist, it takes itself as the standard, has others take it as their own norm, and thus repays that norm with death. In this way it counts being employed as wisdom and not being employed as folly; it counts getting through as renown and being stranded as disgrace.

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“Shifting ‘this/right’”—that is how people today are; like the cicada and young dove, they agree only in what they take to be alike.

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If you tread on a stranger’s foot in the marketplace, you excuse yourself by pleading unrestrained arrogance; if on an elder brother’s foot, you make a soothing murmur; if on the foot of your closest kin, you simply let it be. Therefore it is said: the highest ritual does not treat people as “others”; the highest righteousness does not treat things as things; the highest knowledge does not scheme; the highest benevolence has no partiality; the highest trust dispenses with metal tokens. Clear away the disturbances of the will, untie the perversities of the mind, remove the burdens of virtue, and open the blockages of the Way.

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Nobility, wealth, prominence, severity, fame, and profit—these six disturb the will. Appearance, movement, complexion, reasoning, breath, and intention—these six warp the mind. Aversion, desire, joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure—these six burden virtue. Departing, approaching, taking, giving, knowing, and ability—these six block the Way.

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If these four sets of six do not churn in the breast, there is correctness. With correctness there is stillness; with stillness, clarity; with clarity, emptiness; with emptiness, one acts without acting and nothing is left undone.

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The Way is what Virtue reveres; life is the light of Virtue; nature is the substance of life. The movement of nature is called action; to make action artificial is called loss. Knowing is contact; knowing is planning. What the knower does not know is like a sidelong glance. To move from what cannot be otherwise is called Virtue; to move with nothing that is not myself is called order. Names are contrary, but realities accord.

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Yi was skilled at hitting a tiny target but poor at keeping people from praising him. The sage is skilled in Heaven but poor in human affairs. To be skilled in Heaven and also competent in human affairs—only the Complete Man can do this. Only a creature can be a creature; only a creature can follow its Heaven-given nature. The Complete Man rejects Heaven, rejects the Heaven of man; how much more “my Heaven” and “my man”! If a single sparrow comes to Yi, Yi will surely get it—such is his power.

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If you make the whole world into a cage, then the birds have nowhere to flee. Thus Tang caged Yi Yin with a cook, and Duke Mu of Qin caged Baili Xi with the skins of five sheep. Hence there has never been anyone who could be obtained without being caged by what he likes. A man missing a foot discards ornament, putting blame and praise outside himself; a convict laborer climbs high without fear, having left life and death behind.

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As for being repeatedly alarmed yet making no return, and forgetting others—having forgotten others, one is thereby a Heavenly Man. Therefore, to be respected without being pleased and insulted without being angry—only one who is one with Heavenly Harmony is like this. When anger issues forth and is not anger, then anger comes from non-anger; when action issues forth and is non-action, then action comes from non-action. If you wish for stillness, calm your qi; if you wish for spirit, follow your heart.

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When acting and wishing to be fitting, one follows what cannot be otherwise. The category of the unavoidable is the Way of the sage.

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