External Things莊子 雜篇 外物

Outward things cannot be counted on. So Long Feng was cut down, Bi Gan was put to death, Jizi played the madman, E Lai died, and Jie and Zhou were destroyed.

There is no ruler who does not want his ministers loyal, yet loyalty is not always believed. So Wu Zixu was cast adrift on the river, and Chang Hong died in Shu, and his blood was kept three years and turned into green jade.

There is no parent who does not want his son filial, yet filial conduct is not always loved. So Xiao Ji grieved and Zeng Shen sorrowed.

Wood rubbed against wood burns. Metal held to fire melts. When yin and yang run crosswise, heaven and earth are greatly startled, and then there is thunder and there is lightning, and there is fire in the midst of water, and at last it burns the great locust tree.

When a man has a great worry and falls between the two with nowhere to escape, his heart trembles and he can bring nothing to completion, and his mind hangs as if between heaven and earth. He is troubled and choked, sunk and blocked, and gain and harm grind against each other, and the fire they raise is very great, so that the crowd burns up its own harmony. The moon can never withstand fire, and then all falls in and the Way is at an end.

Zhuang Zhou's house was poor, so he went to Marquis Jianhe to borrow grain. Marquis Jianhe said, "Very well. When the taxes of my town come in, I will lend you three hundred pieces of gold. Will that do?"

Zhuang Zhou flushed with anger and said, "As I came here yesterday, someone was calling from the middle of the road. I looked back at the wheel ruts, and there was a crucian carp in one of them.

I asked it, 'Carp, what are you doing there?' It answered, 'I am a minister of the waves of the Eastern Sea. Have you a peck or a pint of water to keep me alive?'

I said, 'Very well. I am going south to the kings of Wu and Yue, and I will draw off the water of the West River to meet you. Will that do?'

The carp flushed with anger and said, 'I have lost what I am always with, and I have nowhere to be. Get me a peck or a pint of water and I live, that is all. You say a thing like this to me. You had better look for me early in the dried fish shop.'"

The prince of Ren made a great hook and a thick black line, took fifty oxen for bait, squatted on Mount Kuaiji, cast his rod into the Eastern Sea, and fished day after day. For a whole year he got no fish.

Then a great fish took the bait. It dragged the great hook down and ran below, then rose and shook its fins, and the white waves were like mountains and the sea water shook, and the sound was like ghosts and spirits, and it struck fear for a thousand li.

The prince of Ren got that fish, split it and dried it, and from the east of Zhihe to the north of Cangwu there was no one who did not eat his fill of that fish. Ever after, the crowd of narrow talents who pass stories along were all startled and told one another of it.

A man who takes up a small rod and a thin line and hurries to the ditches to watch for minnows and carp will find it hard to get a great fish. A man who dresses up petty sayings to seek office is far from the great getting through. And so one who has never heard of the manner of the Ren clan is far indeed from being fit to order the world with another.

Some scholars were digging up a grave with the Odes and the Rites. The senior scholar passed the word down and said, "Day is breaking in the east. How does the work go?"

The junior scholar said, "The skirt and jacket are not off yet, and there is a pearl in the mouth. The Odes has a line for it: 'Green, green the barley, growing on the slope of the hill. In life he gave nothing away, so why in death does he hold a pearl?'"

They took hold of the side hair and pressed down the chin, and the senior scholar tapped the jaw with an iron hammer and slowly parted the cheeks, saying not to damage the pearl in the mouth.

A disciple of Laolaizi went out to gather firewood, met Zhongni, and came back and reported, "There is a man over there. His upper body is long and his lower body short, his back is bent and his ears are set far back. He looks as if he would govern the four seas. I do not know whose son he is."

Laolaizi said, "That is Qiu. Call him and bring him here."

Zhongni came. Laolaizi said, "Qiu. Put away the stiffness of your body and the knowing look on your face, and you will be a gentleman."

Zhongni bowed and withdrew, then set his face in care and asked, "Can my studies be brought forward?"

Laolaizi said, "You cannot bear the hurt of one age, and so you make light of the trouble of ten thousand ages. Is it that you are hard pressed, or that your reckoning does not reach so far?

To make a show of pleasing men with kindness is a shame for a whole lifetime. It is no more than going forward in the conduct of the common run. They draw one another on with names and bind one another with what is hidden.

Rather than praise Yao and call Jie wrong, it is better to forget them both and shut off what you praise. To go against is never without hurt. To move is never without wrong.

The sage hesitates before he raises a business, and so he always brings it to success. But what is to be done with you, who carry it about and go on making a show of it to the end?"

Lord Yuan of Song dreamed at midnight of a man with his hair down peering in at the side door. The man said, "I come from the pool of Zailu. I was on an errand from the Clear River to Hebo, and Yu Ju the fisherman caught me."

Lord Yuan woke and had a man divine about it, and the man said, "This is a holy turtle."

The lord said, "Is there a fisherman called Yu Ju?"

Those about him said, "There is."

The lord said, "Have Yu Ju come to court."

The next day Yu Ju came to court. The lord said, "What did you get in your fishing?"

He answered, "In my net I got a white turtle, five feet round."

The lord said, "Present your turtle."

When the turtle came, the lord twice wished to kill it and twice wished to let it live. His mind wavered, so he divined about it. The answer was, "It is auspicious to kill the turtle and divine with it." So they cut the turtle open and bored it seventy-two times, and not one reckoning went wrong.

Zhongni said, "The holy turtle could appear in a dream to Lord Yuan, but it could not avoid Yu Ju's net. Its knowledge could bear seventy-two borings with not one reckoning going wrong, but it could not avoid the trouble of having its belly cut open.

This being so, knowledge has places where it is blocked, and holiness has places it does not reach. Though a man have the utmost knowledge, ten thousand men plot against him.

Fish do not fear the net; they fear the pelican. Put away small knowledge and great knowledge grows bright. Put away goodness and you are good of yourself. A newborn child can speak with no great teacher, because it lives with those who can speak."

Huizi said to Zhuangzi, "Your words are of no use."

Zhuangzi said, "A man must know what is of no use before he can be talked with about use.

The earth is wide and great enough, but what a man uses is only as much as will hold his feet. Then if you dug away beside his feet until you reached the Yellow Springs, would the earth still be of use to him?"

Huizi said, "It would be of no use."

Zhuangzi said, "Then it is clear enough that what is of no use has its use."

Zhuangzi said, "If a man is able to wander, can he keep from wandering? If a man is not able to wander, can he wander?

The purpose that drifts and runs off, the conduct that cuts itself away: alas, these are not the charge of the utmost knowledge and of thick virtue. Men fall and tumble and do not turn back, they race like fire and do not look round. Though they become lord and minister to each other, it is only for a time, and when the age changes there is nothing left to hold each other cheap for. So it is said that the perfect man does not stay anywhere in his going.

To honor the old and hold the present cheap is the current among learners. And if the present age is looked at with the current of the Xiwei clan, who would not be tossed on the waves?

Only the perfect man can wander in the world and not be one-sided, can follow others and not lose himself. He does not learn their teaching. He takes their meaning but does not do as they do.

When the eye is open it is clear sight. When the ear is open it is sharp hearing. When the nose is open it is smell. When the mouth is open it is taste. When the mind is open it is knowing. When knowing is open it is virtue.

The Way does not wish to be blocked. If it is blocked it chokes. If it chokes and does not stop, it goes crosswise. If it goes crosswise, the many harms are born.

Those among things that have knowledge depend on breath. If their breath is not full, it is no fault of heaven. Heaven bores them through and lets up neither night nor day, but men for their part stop up their own holes.

The belly has its chambers of space, and the mind has its heavenly wandering. If a room has no empty space, wife and mother-in-law quarrel. If a mind has no heavenly wandering, the six openings jostle each other. That great forests and hills and mountains do men good is likewise because the spirit cannot bear the strain.

Virtue spills over into name, and name spills over into display. Plans are weighed in urgency, and knowledge comes out of contention. Blockage is born of holding on, and the business of office is settled by what suits the crowd.

When the spring rain comes in its season, grasses and trees grow as if in anger, and the hoe and the mattock are then first put in order. More than half the grasses and trees that were set in upside down come up, and no one knows why it is so.

Stillness can help sickness, rubbing the corners of the eyes can give old age rest, and quiet can stop what is urgent. Yet things like these are the business of the man who toils. They are what the man at ease has never stopped to ask about.

What the sage uses to startle the world, the spirit man has never stopped to ask about. What the worthy uses to startle the age, the sage has never stopped to ask about. What the gentleman uses to startle the state, the worthy has never stopped to ask about. What the small man uses to fit the times, the gentleman has never stopped to ask about.

At Yanmen there was a man whose parent died, and because he mourned so well he was given rank and made an officer. Of the men of his village, half wasted away and died.

Yao offered the world to Xu You, and Xu You ran away. Tang offered it to Wu Guang, and Wu Guang was angry at him. Ji Ta heard of it, led his disciples away, and squatted by the Kuan River, and the feudal lords went to comfort him. Three years later Shentu Di followed him and threw himself into the Yellow River.

The fish trap is there for the fish, and when you have the fish you forget the trap. The snare is there for the rabbit, and when you have the rabbit you forget the snare. Words are there for the meaning, and when you have the meaning you forget the words. Where shall I find a man who has forgotten words, so that I may have a word with him?"