Ze Yang莊子 雜篇 則陽

Ze Yang wandered to Chu. Yi Jie spoke of him to the king, but the king did not see him, and Yi Jie went home.

Peng Yang saw Wang Guo and said, "Master, why do you not speak of me to the king?"

Wang Guo said, "I am not the equal of Gong Yuexiu."

Peng Yang said, "What sort of man is Gong Yuexiu?"

He said, "In winter he spears turtles in the river, and in summer he rests at the foot of the mountains. If someone passes by and asks, he says, 'This is my house.'

Now even Yi Jie cannot do that, how much less I. And I am not the equal of Yi Jie either.

The man Yi Jie has no virtue but he has knowledge. He does not grant himself to others, and by this he makes his friendships uncanny and firm. He is a man whose wits are lost in the place of wealth and rank. He does not help others with virtue. He helps them to melt away.

A man who is frozen borrows clothing in the spring, and a man struck by the heat turns back to the cold wind of winter. The king of Chu as a man is lofty and stern in his bearing, and toward crimes he is without pardon, like a tiger. Unless a man is a flatterer or a man of upright virtue, who can bend him?

So the sage, when he is in want, makes the people of his house forget their poverty, and when he gets through, he makes kings and nobles forget rank and stipend and turn to what is low.

Toward things he takes joy with them. Toward men he delights in their getting through, and he keeps himself. So at times he does not speak, and yet he gives men harmony to drink, and merely by standing beside a man he changes him.

Like the fitness of father and son, he lets each go back to his own place and dwell there, and he keeps what he bestows always at leisure. So far off is he from the hearts of men. That is why I said, wait for Gong Yuexiu."

The sage gets through what is tangled and knotted, and he goes all round and exhausts the whole body, yet he does not know that it is so. This is his nature.

He goes back to his destiny, and in his stirring and doing he takes heaven for his teacher. Men then follow after and give him the name of sage.

One is anxious about knowledge, and what one does never lasts long. What is to be done about its coming to a stop?

For one who is beautiful from birth, others are his mirror. If he is not told, he does not know that he is more beautiful than others.

Whether he knows it or does not know it, whether he hears it or does not hear it, his delight in it never comes to an end, and men's liking of him never comes to an end. This is his nature.

So too when a sage loves men. Others give him the name for it, and if he is not told, he does not know that he loves men.

Whether he knows it or does not know it, whether he hears it or does not hear it, his love of men never comes to an end, and men's peace in him never comes to an end. This is his nature.

The old country, the old capital: to look at it is enough to lighten the heart. Even if hills and grasses and trees have grown over it in a tangle and nine parts in ten are buried, still the heart is lightened.

How much more for one who sees what he has seen and hears what he has heard. He is like a terrace ten fathoms high hung up in the midst of the crowd.

The Ranxiang clan got the center of the ring and followed things to their completion. With things there was no ending and no beginning, no measure and no time. One who changes with things day by day is the one who does not change. How should he ever let go of this?

If a man tries to take heaven for his teacher, he does not get heaven for his teacher, and he goes down to the grave along with things. What sort of business is it to make this one's work?

For the sage there has never begun to be heaven, never begun to be man, never begun to be a beginning, never begun to be things. He goes along with the age and does not stop. What he does is complete and does not overflow. What sort of fitting is that?

King Tang got his driver Menyin Dengheng and took him for his teacher. He followed his teacher and yet was not fenced in by him, and he got the following of things to their completion. He put him in charge of the name, and the name overflowed the standard, so that both were made manifest. Zhongni exhausted his thought, and this too was taking such a man for a teacher.

The Rongcheng clan said, "Take away the days and there is no year. There is no inside and no outside."

Ying of Wei made a covenant with Marquis Tian Mou of Qi, and Tian Mou broke it. Wei Ying was angry and was about to send a man to stab him.

Xishou Gongsun Yan heard of it and was ashamed, and said, "My lord is the lord of ten thousand chariots, and would you take your revenge in the manner of a common man? Give me two hundred thousand armored soldiers, and I will attack him for my lord, take his people captive, and lead away his oxen and horses on a tether. I will make his ruler burn inside until a boil breaks out on his back. Then I will pluck up his state. When Tian Ji runs away, I will strike his back and break his spine."

Jizi heard of it and was ashamed, and said, "To build a wall ten fathoms high, and then, when it is already ten fathoms, to tear it down again, is to torment the convict labourers. It is now seven years since troops were raised, and this is my lord's foundation. Gongsun Yan is a man who throws people into disorder. He must not be listened to."

Huazi heard of it and found it ugly, and said, "One who argues well for attacking Qi is a man who throws people into disorder. One who argues well against attacking is also a man who throws people into disorder. And one who says that those who would attack and those who would not attack are men who throw people into disorder is himself a man who throws people into disorder."

The ruler said, "Then what am I to do?"

He said, "My lord has only to seek the Way."

Huizi heard of this and brought Dai Jinren in to see him. Dai Jinren said, "There is a thing called the snail. Does my lord know it?"

He said, "I do."

"There is a state on the left horn of the snail called the Chu clan, and a state on the right horn of the snail called the Man clan. From time to time they fight each other over land. The corpses that fall are tens of thousands, and they chase the fleeing for fifteen days before they turn back."

The ruler said, "Ah. Is that empty talk?"

He said, "Let me make it real for my lord. Does my lord think there is a limit to the four directions and to up and down?"

The ruler said, "There is no limit."

He said, "If a man knows how to let his mind wander in the limitless, and then comes back to the lands where men come and go, do those lands not seem to be there and not to be there?"

The ruler said, "It is so."

He said, "Among the lands where men come and go there is Wei. Within Wei there is Daliang. Within Daliang there is my lord. Is there any difference between my lord and the Man clan?"

The ruler said, "There is no difference."

The guest went out, and the ruler was dazed, as if he had lost something.

After the guest went out, Huizi came in to see him. The ruler said, "That guest is a great man. A sage is not enough to match him."

Huizi said, "When you blow a pipe, there is still a droning sound. When you blow across the pommel hole of a sword, there is only a puff. Yao and Shun are what men praise, but to speak of Yao and Shun before Dai Jinren is like a single puff."

When Confucius went to Chu, he lodged at the wine seller's at Ant Hill. Next door a husband and a wife and menservants and maidservants had climbed up on the roof. Zilu said, "What are those people gathered up there doing?"

Zhongni said, "That man is a sage's servant. He has buried himself among the people and hidden himself among the field paths.

His voice has died away, but his purpose has no limit. His mouth may speak, but his heart has never spoken. He sets himself against the age, and in his heart he does not care to go along with it. This is a man drowned on dry land. Is that not Shinan Yiliao?"

Zilu asked leave to go and call him.

Confucius said, "Let it be. He knows that I would make him known, and he knows that I am going to Chu, and he will think that I mean to have the king of Chu summon him. He will take me for a flatterer.

A man like that is ashamed even to hear a flatterer's words, how much more to see him in person. Then how should he still be there?"

Zilu went and looked, and the house was already empty.

The border warden of Changwu said to Zilao, "When you govern, my lord, do not be rough, and when you rule the people, do not be careless.

Once when I grew grain, I plowed roughly, and the grain paid me back roughly. I weeded carelessly, and the grain paid me back carelessly. The next year I changed my way. I plowed deep and covered the seed well, and the grain grew thick and lush, and I ate my fill the whole year through."

Zhuangzi heard of this and said, "In the way men now govern their bodies and order their hearts, there is much that is like what the border warden said. They run away from their heaven, leave their nature, wipe out their true state, and lose their spirit, and so they do the business of the crowd.

So in one who is rough with his nature, the sprouts of desire and hatred become reeds and rushes in that nature. When they first shoot up they seem to hold up my body, and before long they pull up my nature. They break and leak and burst all at once and choose no place to come out, and this is what running sores and scabs and boils are, and the inner heat that passes out as grease."

Bo Ju studied under Lao Dan and said, "I ask leave to wander in the world."

Lao Dan said, "Let it be. The world is all like this."

He asked again, and Lao Dan said, "Where will you begin?"

He said, "I will begin in Qi."

He came to Qi, and there he saw a man who had been put to death for a crime. He pushed him and laid him out straight, took off his court robe and covered him with it, and called on heaven and wailed for him.

"You there, you there. There is a great calamity in the world, and you alone have met it first. They say, 'Do not steal, do not kill.' But when glory and disgrace are set up, only then is it seen what sickens men. When goods and wealth are heaped up, only then is it seen what men fight over.

Now they set up what sickens men and heap up what men fight over, and they wear men's bodies down with want so that they have no time to rest. And then they wish that it would not come to this. Can such a wish be had?"

"Those who ruled men in old times put what was gained with the people and what was lost with themselves. They put what was straight with the people and what was crooked with themselves. So if even one body lost its form, they withdrew and blamed themselves.

Now it is not so. They hide a thing away and then call men fools for not knowing it. They make a thing very hard and then punish men for not daring it. They load the burden heavy and then penalize men for not bearing it. They make the road long and then put men to death for not arriving.

When the people's knowledge and strength are used up, they carry on with falsehood. Day by day falsehood grows, and how should officers and people not be false? When strength is not enough, men lie. When knowledge is not enough, men cheat. When goods are not enough, men steal. For the deeds of stealing and thieving, on whom is it right to lay the blame?"

Qu Boyu lived sixty years and changed sixty times. There was never a time when he did not begin by calling a thing right and end by pushing it away as wrong. He does not know whether what he now calls right is not the wrong of the past fifty-nine years.

The ten thousand things have their birth, but no one sees their root. They have their coming forth, but no one sees their gate.

Men all honor what their knowledge knows, but none knows how to lean on what his knowledge does not know and only then to know. Is that not to be called a great doubt? Let it be, let it be. And there is nowhere to escape to. This is what is called being so. Is it so indeed?

Zhongni asked the grand historians Da Tao, Bo Changqian, and Xi Wei, "Duke Ling of Wei drank wine and sank into pleasure and did not attend to the government of the state. He hunted and netted and shot with stringed arrows and did not answer to the dealings among the feudal lords. Then why was he called Ling?"

Da Tao said, "It is for just that reason."

Bo Changqian said, "Duke Ling had three wives, and he bathed with them in one tub. Yet when Shi Qiu came forward at the ruler's call, the duke took up the offering of silk and helped him and supported him. He was as loose as that in the one case, and as grave as this when he saw a worthy man. That is why he was called Ling."

Xi Wei said, "When Duke Ling died, they divined about burying him in the old graveyard and it was not auspicious, and they divined about burying him at Sand Hill and it was auspicious. They dug down several fathoms and found a stone coffin. They washed it and looked at it, and there was an inscription on it that said, 'He shall not lean on his son. Duke Ling shall take this and lodge in it.' Duke Ling has been Ling for a long time. How could those two men know enough to tell it?"

Shaozhi asked Dagong Diao, "What is meant by the talk of the village?"

Dagong Diao said, "A village is ten surnames and a hundred names gathered and made into a custom. It gathers the different and makes them the same, and it scatters the same and makes them different.

Now if you point to the hundred parts of a horse, you do not get the horse. But when the horse is tied up before you, you set its hundred parts together and call it a horse.

For this reason hills and mountains pile up the low and become high, rivers and streams gather their waters and become great, and the great man gathers all together and becomes impartial.

So what comes in from outside has a host, but he does not hold on to it, and what goes out from within has its straightness, but he does not block it.

The four seasons differ in their breath, but heaven favors none of them, and so the year is completed. The five offices differ in their charge, but the ruler is partial to none, and so the state is governed. Civil and military differ, but the great man favors neither, and so virtue is complete. The ten thousand things differ in their pattern, but the Way is partial to none, and so it has no name.

Having no name, it does nothing. Doing nothing, there is nothing it does not do. Times have their ending and their beginning, and ages have their changes. Fortune and misfortune flow on, and where they arrive there is something crossed and there is something fitting. Each follows its own face to its death, and where there is something straight there is something off.

Set it beside a great marsh, and a hundred kinds of timber are all measured there. Look at a great mountain, and trees and stones stand on the same ground. This is what is called the talk of the village."

Shaozhi said, "Then is it enough to call this the Way?"

Dagong Diao said, "It is not. If you count the number of things now, it does not stop at ten thousand. Yet we fix on the words ten thousand things because we name and speak of them by the largest of numbers.

For this reason heaven and earth are the greatest of forms, yin and yang are the greatest of breaths, and the Way is what is common to them.

To name and speak of it from its greatness is allowable. But once you have said that it is there, are you then to set it beside other things? To make your distinctions in this way is like a dog and a horse. It falls far short."

Shaozhi said, "Within the four directions and inside the six directions, where do the ten thousand things arise in their birth?"

Dagong Diao said, "Yin and yang shine on each other, cover each other, govern each other. The four seasons take turns with each other, give birth to each other, kill each other. Desire and hatred, going away and drawing near, rise up here like a bridge thrown across, and male and female pair and join and here become constant.

Safety and danger change places with each other, fortune and misfortune give birth to each other, slow and fast rub against each other, and gathering and scattering bring things to completion. These are what can be recorded by name and substance, what can be set down to its finest and smallest part.

They follow in order and make each other's pattern, they move like a bridge thrown across and set each other going, and when they reach an end they turn back, and when they finish they begin. This is what things possess, what words exhaust, what knowledge reaches. It is going to the end of things, no more.

The man who has seen the Way does not follow after where they perish and does not trace out where they arise. This is where argument comes to a stop."

Shaozhi said, "There is Jizhen's 'no one does it' and Jiezi's 'something makes it so.' Of the arguments of these two houses, which is straight about the true state of things, and which goes all the way round in its pattern?"

Dagong Diao said, "That the cock crows and the dog barks is what all men know. Yet even a man of great knowledge cannot put into words how they change of themselves, nor can he guess with his mind what they are going to do.

Split this apart and divide it, and the fine reaches to where there is nothing to match it, and the great reaches to where it cannot be enclosed. 'Something makes it so' and 'no one does it' do not get free of things, and in the end they are faults.

Say that something makes it so, and it is full. Say that no one does it, and it is empty. What has a name and has substance is where things dwell. What has no name and no substance lies in the emptiness of things. It can be spoken of and thought of, but the more it is spoken of, the further off it goes.

What is not yet born cannot be kept away, and what is already dead cannot be stopped. Death and life are not far off, but their pattern cannot be seen. 'Something makes it so' and 'no one does it' are borrowed from doubt.

When I look at its root, its going has no limit. When I seek its end, its coming has no stop. What has no limit and no stop is where words are absent, and it shares one pattern with things. 'Something makes it so' and 'no one does it' are the root of words, and they finish and begin along with things.

The Way cannot be had, and what is had cannot be done away with. The name Way is borrowed so that we may go on. 'Something makes it so' and 'no one does it' stand at one bend of things. What have they to do with the great course?

If words were enough, we could speak all day and exhaust the Way. Since words are not enough, we speak all day and exhaust only things. The farthest point of the Way and of things cannot be carried by speech or by silence. Neither speech nor silence: there is where argument reaches its limit."