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External Things

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External things cannot be made certain; therefore Long Pang was executed, Bi Gan slain, Jizi feigned madness, E Lai died, and Jie and Zhou perished. No ruler does not want his minister to be loyal, yet loyalty does not necessarily win trust; therefore Wu Yun was cast into the river, Chang Hong died in Shu, and his blood was stored, and after three years it turned into green jade.

Parents all wish their children to be filial, yet filial piety does not necessarily win love; hence Xiao Ji was anxious and Zeng Shen grieved. When wood is rubbed against wood, it catches fire; when metal is kept together with fire, it melts. When yin and yang move out of order, heaven and earth are greatly disturbed; then there are thunder and lightning, fire within water, and it burns the great locust tree. There are those with deep sorrow, caught in a twofold trap with no way to escape.

Anxiety and agitation prevent things from coming to completion. The mind hangs as if suspended between heaven and earth, depressed, knotted, and stagnant. Benefit and harm rub against each other, kindling much inner turmoil; people burn away their harmony. The moon cannot overcome fire, and so one sinks into collapse and the Way is exhausted.

Zhuang Zhou's family was poor, so he went to borrow grain from the Marquis of Jianhe. The Marquis of Jianhe said, “All right. I will soon receive the revenue from my fief; then I will lend you three hundred pieces of gold. Would that do?”

Zhuang Zhou flushed with anger and said, “When I, Zhou, came yesterday, someone was calling out in the middle of the road. I looked back at the wheel ruts and saw a crucian carp in them. I asked it, ‘Crucian carp, what are you doing here?’”

It replied, “I am a subject of the waves of the Eastern Sea. Could you possibly have a dou or a sheng of water to keep me alive!”

Zhou said, “Agreed. I shall travel south to persuade the kings of Wu and Yue, and stir up the waters of the West River to come and meet you—would that do?”

The fish flushed with anger and said, “I have lost my constant element and have nowhere to abide. If I obtained a measure or a pint of water, I would live. Yet you speak like this—better for you to look for me in a dried-fish shop.”

Master Ren made a giant hook and a huge black cord, using fifty castrated oxen as bait. He crouched on Kuaiji and cast his line into the East Sea, fishing every morning; for a full year he caught no fish. Then a great fish swallowed the bait, seized the giant hook, plunged down into the depths, then surged upward and lashed its fins; white waves rose like mountains, the seawater churned, the sound matched ghosts and spirits, and its blazing splendor shone across a thousand li.

Ren Gongzi caught the fish, cut it up, and dried it. From east of the Zhi River (the old gloss identifies 制 with 淛, Zhejiang) to north of Cangwu, everyone had a share and ate their fill. Later generations of shallow talents who recite and circulate tales were astonished and told one another about it. As for raising a fishing pole and line, rushing to irrigation ditches, and waiting for tiny fish and crucian carp, it is difficult to catch a great fish that way.

To embellish petty talk in order to seek a county magistracy is also far from great attainment. Therefore, one who has never heard of the Ren clan’s customs is also far from being able to take part in managing the world.

Confucians were robbing a grave by means of the Poems and the Rites. The Great Confucian relayed a message: “The east is dawning—how goes the matter?”

The lesser Confucian said, 'His skirt and jacket are not yet untied; there is a pearl in his mouth.'

'The Poems indeed has this saying: "Green, green is the wheat, growing on the slope. In life he did not give charity; in death, why hold a pearl in his mouth?"'

Seize his temple hair, press down his jaw, and with a metal mallet the Confucian pries at his chin; gently part his cheeks, and do not injure the pearl in his mouth.'

A disciple of Lao Laizi went out to gather firewood and met Zhongni. He returned and reported, “There is a man over there: long in the upper body and short in the lower body, with a bent back and ears set back; his gaze seems to be scheming over the four seas. I do not know whose son he is.”

Lao Laizi said, “It is Qiu. Call him to come.”

When Zhongni arrived, Lao Laizi said, “Qiu, cast off your self-importance and your outward display of wisdom; then you will be a gentleman.”

Zhongni bowed, stepped back, and, his expression troubled, asked, “Can one’s learning make further progress?”

Lao Laizi said, "You cannot bear the injury of one generation, yet you make light of the calamity of ten thousand generations. Is it that you are truly narrow and impoverished? Or is it that your plans do not reach far enough? To make kindness a means of pleasing and to take pride in it is a lifelong disgrace; this is precisely where the conduct of ordinary people readily advances. They pull one another along by reputation and bind one another by hidden things. Rather than praise Yao and condemn Jie, it is better to forget both and shut away what they praise."

“To go against things is invariably harmful, and to act is invariably wayward. The sage undertakes affairs with deliberation and so often succeeds. What can be done? What you carry may in the end amount only to self-conceit.”

At midnight, Duke Yuan of Song dreamed that a man with disheveled hair was peering through a side gate and said, “I come from the deep pool of Zailu. I was on my way as the Qing River’s envoy to the River Earl, and the fisherman Yu Ju caught me.”

When Duke Yuan woke, he sent someone to divine it, and the diviner said, “This is a divine turtle.”

The duke said, “Is there a fisherman named Yu Ju?”

The attendants on both sides said, “There is.”

The ruler said, “Order Yu Ju to come to court.”

The next day, Yu Ju came to court. The ruler said, “What did you catch by fishing?”

He replied, “The fisherman Yu Ju’s net caught a white tortoise whose circumference was five chi. The working text reads ‘箕圆’; other transmitted editions read ‘其圆,’ which is followed here in interpreting the measurement.”

The lord said, “Present your turtle.”

When the turtle arrived, the lord twice wanted to kill it and twice wanted to keep it alive. His mind was uncertain, so he divined about it. The answer said, “Killing the turtle for divination is auspicious.”

They cut open the tortoise and drilled it seventy-two times for divination, with no divining slips missing. Zhongni said: “The spirit tortoise could appear in Lord Yuan’s dream, yet could not escape Yu Ju’s net. Its wisdom could meet seventy-two drillings without losing a divining slip, yet it could not escape the disaster of having its belly cut open. Thus wisdom has its limits, and spiritual insight cannot reach everything. Even the highest wisdom can be defeated by the schemes of many.”

Fish do not fear nets but fear pelicans. Let go of petty knowledge, and greater wisdom becomes clear; let go of contrived goodness, and goodness can arise naturally. A newborn has no great teacher yet can speak because it lives among those who speak.

Huizi said to Zhuangzi, 'Your words are useless.'

Zhuangzi said, “Only when one understands the useless can one begin to discuss the useful. The earth is not lacking in breadth and greatness, yet what a person uses of it is no more than enough ground for his feet. But then, if one dug a trench at the side of his feet down to the Yellow Springs, would he still have any use for it?”

Huizi said, “It has no use.”

Zhuangzi said, “Then it is also clear that the useless has its use.”

Zhuangzi said: "If a person has the capacity to wander, how can they not wander? If a person does not have the capacity to wander, how can they wander? As for drifting and fleeing intentions and decisively severing conduct—alas, are these not the charge of the utmost knowledge and profound virtue? To be overturned and fall without turning back, to race like fire without looking aside: though they may together be ruler and minister, that is a matter of time. When the age changes, there is no way for them to demean one another."

Therefore it is said: the ultimate person does not linger in any course of action. To revere antiquity and belittle the present is the manner of scholars. Moreover, if one views the present world through the kind of Xi Wei, who can avoid being stirred? Only the ultimate person can wander in the world without becoming eccentric, can follow others without losing himself. What others teach, he does not learn; he receives the intent without becoming the other.

When the eyes are clear, there is vision; when the ears are clear, there is hearing; when the nose is clear, it discerns scents; when the mouth is clear, it tastes sweetness; when the heart is clear, there is knowing; when wisdom is clear, there is virtue. Traditional commentary reads “颤” as shān here and glosses it as a pungent or acrid smell. The received graph is retained rather than silently emended to “膻.” The Way should not be obstructed: obstruction chokes it, and if choking continues, trampling follows and many harms arise. Living things with awareness depend on breath; if it is not abundant, that is not Heaven’s fault.

Heaven opens passages through us and does not cease day or night, yet people obstruct their own apertures. The womb has layered hollows, and the heart has its natural roaming. When a house has no free space, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law quarrel; when the heart has no heavenly roaming, the six senses contend. The delight people take in great forests and hills shows how the spirit, too, can be overcome by external things.

Virtue overflows on account of fame, and fame in turn overflows through public display. Urgency delays and obstructs planning; cleverness arises from contention. Old commentaries explain 柴 in two ways, as standing apart or as obstruction; this rendering follows the latter, taking the line to mean that guarding leads to blockage. Public affairs succeed when they accord with what suits the many. The working text reads 春雨日时. An old gloss suspects 日 may be a scribal error for 曰; this translation adopts that emendation and reads the phrase as spring rain falling in season. Plants grow vigorously and hoes and other farm tools are put in order. Following an old gloss, 到植 is understood as vegetation turned over after weeding and growing again; more than half does so, though people do not know why.

Quietness can help restore the ill. “Zìmiè” (an obscure term with textual variants, explained by some commentators as rubbing the eye corners) is said to offer relief in old age. Calm can check haste.

Even so, this is the toiler's business, not the idler's; the idler has never come by to ask about it. The means by which the sage startles the world, the spirit-man has never come by to ask about; the means by which the worthy man startles the age, the sage has never come by to ask about; the means by which the noble man startles the state, the worthy man has never come by to ask about; the means by which the petty man fits the times, the noble man has never come by to ask about.

At Yanmen there was a man whose parent had died; because he was good at wasting away from grief, he was enfeoffed as an official teacher. Half of his partisans, imitating his wasting away, died. Yao offered the world to Xu You, and Xu You fled from it; Tang offered it to Wu Guang, and Wu Guang was angered by it. Ji Ta heard of this, led his disciples, and squatted by the Kuan River; the feudal lords condoled with him. After three years, Shen Tu Di accordingly threw himself into the river.

The fish trap is for the sake of fish; once the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The rabbit snare is for the sake of rabbits; once the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. Words are for the sake of meaning; once the meaning is grasped, the words are forgotten. How can I find a man who has forgotten words and speak with him?

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