Tian Zifang莊子 外篇 田子方

Tian Zifang was sitting in attendance on Marquis Wen of Wei, and he praised Xigong again and again.

Marquis Wen said, "Is Xigong your teacher?"

Zifang said, "No. He is a man of Wuze's village. What he says of the Way has hit the mark many times, and so Wuze has praised him."

Marquis Wen said, "Then have you no teacher?"

Zifang said, "I have."

He said, "Who is your teacher?"

Zifang said, "Dongguo Shunzi."

Marquis Wen said, "Then why have you, sir, never praised him?"

Zifang said, "He is true as a man. He has the form of a man and the emptiness of heaven. He follows what comes and keeps what is true. He is clear and yet holds all things. When a thing has no Way in it he sets his face straight and wakes it, and so he makes the purposes of men melt away. How could Wuze be fit to praise him?"

When Zifang went out, Marquis Wen sat blank all day without speaking. Then he called the minister standing before him and said to him,

"He is far away, the gentleman whose virtue is whole. At first I thought that words of sage knowledge and deeds of kindness and right conduct were the highest thing. Now that I have heard of Zifang's teacher, my body has come loose and I do not want to move, my mouth is clamped shut and I do not want to speak. What I have learned is only a clay figure, and this state of Wei is truly my entanglement."

Wenbo Xuezi was going to Qi and lodged in Lu. There was a man of Lu who asked to see him.

Wenbo Xuezi said, "It cannot be. I have heard that the gentlemen of the Middle Kingdom are clear about ritual and right conduct but are dull at knowing the hearts of men. I do not wish to see him."

He reached Qi, and on his way back he lodged in Lu again, and that same man asked to see him.

Wenbo Xuezi said, "Before he wished to see me, and now he wishes to see me again. He must have some reason for shaking me."

He went out and saw the guest, and came in and sighed. The next day he saw the guest, and again came in and sighed.

His servant said, "Every time you see this guest you come in and sigh. Why is that?"

He said, "I told you truly, 'The people of the Middle Kingdom are clear about ritual and right conduct but are dull at knowing the hearts of men.'

"The man who saw me just now goes forward and steps back all of a piece with the compass and all of a piece with the square, and his quiet bearing is like a dragon in one thing and like a tiger in another. He corrects me like a son and he guides me like a father, and that is why I sigh."

Zhongni saw him and said nothing. Zilu said, "You have wished to see Wenbo Xuezi for a long time. You have seen him and said nothing. Why is that?"

Zhongni said, "With a man like that, when the eyes meet the Way is there, and there is no room left for sound."

Yan Yuan asked Zhongni, "When you walk I walk, when you hurry I hurry, when you run I run. But when you race off and leave the dust behind, I am left staring after you with my eyes wide."

The master said, "Hui, what do you mean?"

He said, "When you walk I walk, when you speak I speak, when you hurry I hurry, when you argue I argue, when you run I run, and when you speak of the Way I too speak of the Way.

"But when you race off and leave the dust behind and I am left staring after you with my eyes wide, it is because you do not speak and yet are trusted, you do not draw close and yet reach everywhere, you have no vessel and yet the people crowd before you, and I do not know how this comes about."

Zhongni said, "Ah, how can you fail to look into this?

"There is no sorrow greater than the death of the heart, and the death of the man comes after it.

"The sun comes out in the east and goes in at the western end, and there is nothing among the ten thousand things that does not follow that way. Whatever has eyes and feet waits for this and only then gets its work done. When this comes out they are there, when this goes in they are gone. The ten thousand things are the same. They have something they wait for and they die, they have something they wait for and they live.

"Once I have received this finished shape, I do not change but wait for my end. I take my movement from things and there is no gap in it night or day, and I do not know where it will end. Warm and quiet the shape is made, and I know my fate and cannot measure what lies before it, and so I go my way day after day.

"All my life I have brushed your arm and missed you. Is that not sad?

"You seem to see only what shows in what shows of me. That is already finished, and you look for it as though it still were. That is looking for a horse at an empty market.

"What I hold of you I forget entirely, and what you hold of me you forget entirely. Even so, what have you to worry about? Though you forget the old me, there is something in me that is not forgotten."

Confucius went to see Lao Dan. Lao Dan had just washed his hair and was letting it down to dry, standing so still that he did not seem to be a man.

Confucius drew back and waited, and after a little while he saw him and said, "Are my eyes dazzled, or is it truly so? A moment ago your body stood up like a withered tree, as though you had left things behind and parted from men and were standing alone."

Lao Dan said, "I was letting my heart wander at the beginning of things."

Confucius said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "The heart is blocked there and cannot know it, the mouth is shut and cannot speak it. Let me try to set out its broad shape for you.

"The utmost yin is cold, the utmost yang is hot. The cold comes out of heaven, the hot rises out of the earth. The two pass into each other and make harmony, and things are born. Something is the cord that holds them, but no one has seen its shape.

"There is waning and waxing, filling and emptying, now dark and now bright. It is made over day by day and changed month by month, and there is something done each day, but no one has seen its work.

"Life has a place where it sprouts, death has a place where it returns. Beginning and end stand against each other where there is no thread, and no one knows where they end. If it is not this, what else would be the ancestor of it all?"

Confucius said, "I ask how one wanders there."

Lao Dan said, "To gain this is the utmost beauty and the utmost joy. One who gains the utmost beauty and wanders in the utmost joy is called the perfect man."

Confucius said, "I would like to hear the way to it."

He said, "The grass-eating beast is not troubled by a change of marsh, and the creature born in water is not troubled by a change of water. They go through a small change and do not lose the great constant, and so joy and anger and sorrow and delight do not enter their breasts.

"The world is that in which the ten thousand things are one. Gain that in which they are one and become the same as it, and your four limbs and your whole body will be dust and dirt, and death and life and end and beginning will be day and night and nothing will be able to trouble you. How much less will gain and loss and misfortune and blessing get in the way.

"A man throws away a servant as he throws away mud because he knows that his own body is worth more than a servant. What is worth more lies in me, and I do not lose it in the changing. And there are ten thousand changes and there has never yet been an end to them, so what is there to trouble the heart? One who already walks the Way has untied this."

Confucius said, "Your virtue is the match of heaven and earth, and still you borrow the highest words to cultivate your heart. Which of the gentlemen of old could escape this?"

Lao Dan said, "It is not so. Water wells up with no doing, and its power is so of itself. So it is with the perfect man and his virtue. He does not cultivate it and things cannot leave him. It is as heaven is high of itself and earth is thick of itself and the sun and the moon are bright of themselves. What is there to cultivate?"

Confucius went out and told Yan Hui, "In the Way I am like a gnat in a wine jar. If the master had not lifted the cover off me, I would not have known the great wholeness of heaven and earth."

Zhuangzi saw Duke Ai of Lu, and Duke Ai said, "There are many Confucians in Lu, and few who follow your arts."

Zhuangzi said, "There are few Confucians in Lu."

Duke Ai said, "The whole state of Lu wears Confucian dress. How can you call them few?"

Zhuangzi said, "I have heard that among Confucians the one who wears the round cap knows the seasons of heaven, the one who wears square shoes knows the shapes of the earth, and the one who wears a jade ring on a colored cord decides when a matter comes to him.

"A gentleman who holds their Way does not always wear their dress, and one who wears their dress does not always know their Way.

"If you truly think it is not so, why not proclaim through the state, 'Whoever wears this dress without this Way, his crime is death'?"

So Duke Ai proclaimed it for five days, and in the state of Lu no one dared to wear Confucian dress. Only one man in Confucian dress stood at the duke's gate. The duke called him in at once and asked him about the affairs of the state, and through a thousand turns and ten thousand changes he was never at a loss.

Zhuangzi said, "In the whole state of Lu there is one Confucian. Can you call them many?"

Baili Xi let no rank or pay into his heart. So he fed the oxen and the oxen grew fat, and he made Duke Mu of Qin forget his low station and hand the government over to him.

The lord of Youyu let no death or life into his heart. So he was able to move men.

Duke Yuan of Song was about to have a painting made, and all the painters came and bowed and stood waiting. They licked their brushes and mixed their ink, and half of them were outside.

One painter came late. He was at his ease and did not hurry, and when he had bowed he did not stand waiting but went straight to his lodging. The duke sent a man to look at him, and there he was with his robe off and his legs stretched out and nothing on.

The ruler said, "That will do. This one is a true painter."

King Wen was looking about at Zang when he saw a man fishing, and his fishing was not fishing. He was not holding his line to catch anything. He was simply always fishing.

King Wen wished to raise him up and hand the government to him, but he feared that his great ministers and his elder kinsmen would not be easy about it. He wished to let it go and give him up, but he could not bear that the people should be left without a heaven.

So in the morning he said to his officers, "Last night I saw a good man in a dream. He was dark in the face and bearded, and he rode a piebald horse with one red hoof, and he called out, 'Give your government over to the old man of Zang, and the people may perhaps be healed.'"

The officers started and said, "It was the late king."

King Wen said, "Then let us take the omens."

The officers said, "It was the command of the late king. Your majesty has nothing else to do. Why take omens?"

So he welcomed the old man of Zang and handed the government to him. He changed no law and no rule, and he sent out no one-sided order.

After three years King Wen looked at his state. The officers had broken up their cliques and scattered their parties. Those who held office no longer made a show of virtue. Measures of other sizes no longer dared come inside the four borders.

The officers broke up their cliques and scattered their parties because they had become one with what was above. Those who held office no longer made a show of virtue because they worked at one task. Measures of other sizes no longer dared come inside the four borders because the lords had no second heart.

King Wen then made him grand tutor, and facing north he asked, "Can this government reach the whole world?"

The old man of Zang looked blank and did not answer, and he refused in an offhand way. He gave orders in the morning and slipped away in the night, and for the rest of his life he was not heard of again.

Yan Yuan asked Zhongni, "Was King Wen still not enough? And why did he make use of a dream?"

Zhongni said, "Be still, say nothing. King Wen went all the way. What is there to discuss and blame? He was only following the needs of a moment."

Lie Yukou shot for Bohun Wuren. He drew the string all the way and set a cup of water on his elbow. When he loosed, one arrow followed hard on another and the next was already in place. At such a moment he was like a wooden figure.

Bohun Wuren said, "This is the shooting of shooting, not the shooting of not shooting. Suppose I climbed a high mountain with you and we stood on a dangerous rock above a gorge a hundred fathoms deep. Could you shoot then?"

So Wuren climbed a high mountain, stood on a dangerous rock above a gorge a hundred fathoms deep, turned his back and stepped back until two thirds of his feet hung over the edge, and bowed to Yukou to come forward. Yukou lay flat on the ground and the sweat ran down to his heels.

Bohun Wuren said, "The perfect man peers at the blue sky above and dives to the yellow springs below and swings about the eight ends of the world, and his spirit and his breath do not change. Now you start and your eyes are dizzy with it. Your aim, too, must be in danger."

Jianwu asked Sunshu Ao, "Three times you became chief minister and took no glory in it, and three times you left the office and had no worried look. At first I doubted you, but now I look at your nose and it is bright and easy. How is it that you use your heart in this way?"

Sunshu Ao said, "How am I better than other men? I took it that what comes cannot be pushed back and what goes cannot be held, and I took it that gain and loss are not in me, and so I had no worried look. How am I better than other men?

"And I do not know whether it lies out there or in me. If it lies out there it is not in me, if it lies in me it is not out there. I am about to hesitate, I am about to look about me on all sides. What leisure have I to come to whether a man is honored or held low?"

Zhongni heard this and said, "The true men of old could not be talked round by the knowing, could not be overreached by the beautiful, could not be seized by robbers, and could not be made friends by Fuxi or the Yellow Emperor.

"Death and life are great matters, and even they made no change in them. How much less rank and pay. Such a man passes his spirit through a great mountain and nothing blocks it, he goes into a deep spring and is not wetted, he is set in a low and small place and is not worn out. He fills heaven and earth, and the more he gives to others the more he has."

The king of Chu was sitting with the ruler of Fan, and after a little while the men about the king of Chu spoke three times of the fall of Fan.

The ruler of Fan said, "The fall of Fan is not enough to take away my being. And if 'the fall of Fan is not enough to take away my being,' then the standing of Chu is not enough to make its being stand. Looked at in this way, Fan has never yet fallen and Chu has never yet been."