Lie Yukou莊子 雜篇 列禦寇

Lie Yukou set out for Qi and turned back in the middle of the road, and on the way he met Bohun Wuren. Bohun Wuren said, "Why have you turned back?"

He said, "I was startled."

He said, "What startled you?"

He said, "I ate at ten stalls that sell gruel, and five of them served me first."

Bohun Wuren said, "If that is so, what was there in it to startle you?"

He said, "When the sincerity within is not loosened, it leaks out through the body and turns into a light. From outside it presses down on the hearts of others and makes them think lightly of the honored and the old, and so it ripens the trouble that comes of it.

A man who sells gruel is only a trader in soup to be eaten, and there is not much left over for gain. His profit is thin and his power is light, and yet it goes like this. What then of the lord of ten thousand chariots!

His body toils for his state and his knowledge is spent upon its affairs, and he will lay tasks upon me and look to me for results. This is why I was startled."

Bohun Wuren said, "Well seen indeed! Stay as you are. Men will gather about you."

Not long after, he went there, and the shoes outside the door were many. Bohun Wuren stood facing north, set his staff upright and pressed it to his chin, stood there a while, and went out without a word.

The man who received the guests told Liezi. Liezi caught up his shoes and ran out barefoot, and when he reached the gate he said, "You have come, sir. How is it that you give me no medicine?"

He said, "Enough. I told you from the first that men would gather about you, and now indeed they gather about you.

It is not that you can make men gather about you. It is that you cannot make men not gather about you. Then why use this to show beforehand that you are different? There is bound to be something that stirs them and shakes your own root, and that is not worth talking about.

Those who wander with you do not tell you this either. The small words they speak are all poison to a man. Not one of them wakes, not one of them understands. How should they ripen one another?

The skillful toil and the knowing worry. The man without ability seeks nothing. He eats his fill and roams at leisure, drifting like a boat that is not tied, an empty man roaming free."

Huan, a man of Zheng, chanted his books in the land of the Qiu clan. In only three years Huan became a Confucian, and as a river moistens nine li, his bounty reached the three branches of his kin, and he made his younger brother a Mohist.

The Confucian and the Mohist argued with each other, and their father helped Mo Di's side. In ten years Huan killed himself.

He came to his father in a dream and said, "It was I who made your son a Mohist. Why have you never once looked at my grave? I have already become the fruit of the autumn cypress."

Now when the maker of things repays a man, he does not repay the man himself but repays the Heaven in him, and it was that which made him so.

When a man holds that there is something in him unlike other men, and so despises his own parent, he is like the man of Qi who seizes by the throat the one drinking from the well. So it is said that all the world today is Huan.

Seen in this way, even the man of virtue does not know it. How much less the man of the Way! The ancients called this the punishment for fleeing Heaven.

The sage is at ease in what gives him ease, and is not at ease in what does not give him ease. The many are at ease in what does not give them ease, and are not at ease in what gives them ease.

Zhuangzi said, "To know the Way is easy. Not to speak of it is hard. To know and not to speak is the road that goes to Heaven. To know and to speak of it is the road that goes to man. The men of old went to Heaven and not to man."

Zhu Pingman learned how to slaughter dragons from Zhili Yi, and he spent a household of a thousand pieces of gold on it. In three years his art was complete, and there was nowhere to use his skill.

The sage does not make certain even what must be certain, and so he has no strife. The many make certain what need not be certain, and so they have much strife. They follow strife, and so there is seeking in what they do. Strife destroys the man who leans on it.

The knowledge of the small man never leaves gift bundles and letters. He wears out his spirit on what is shallow and blocked, and still he wants to save both the Way and things together, and to make the Great One and the emptiness of form.

A man like this is lost in the universe and bound by his body, and he does not know the Great Beginning.

But the perfect man returns his spirit to what has no beginning, and sleeps sweetly in the village of nothing whatever. He flows like water into what has no form and spills out into the great clearness.

How sad it is. Your knowledge is at the tip of a hair, and you do not know the great peace.

There was a man of Song named Cao Shang who went as envoy to Qin for the king of Song. When he set out he was given several carriages, and the king of Qin was pleased with him and added a hundred carriages more.

He came back to Song, saw Zhuangzi, and said, "To live in a poor lane in a narrow alley, weaving sandals in want, with a withered neck and a yellow face, is what I am bad at. To wake the lord of ten thousand chariots with one word and have a hundred carriages follow me is what I am good at."

Zhuangzi said, "The king of Qin fell ill and called for a physician. The man who breaks open his boils and drains his sores gets one carriage, and the man who licks his piles gets five carriages. The lower the place treated, the more carriages are got. Did you treat his piles? How is it that you got so many carriages? Be off with you."

Duke Ai of Lu asked Yan He, "If I make Zhongni the pillar of my state, will the state be cured?"

He said, "How dangerous. Zhongni stands in peril. He is just now decorating feathers and painting over them, and he busies himself with flowery words.

He takes the branch for the point. He bends his own nature to make a show before the people, and does not know that he is not believed. He takes it into his heart, they say, and rules it with his spirit. How could such a man be fit to stand above the people?

Is he right for you? Will he nourish you? What is wrong can be made to look right, and that is all.

To make the people leave what is real and learn what is false is no way to show them anything. If you are thinking of later ages, you had better let it be. He is hard to govern with."

To give to others and not forget it is not the giving of Heaven. Even a merchant does not count it. Though he count it in his business, the spirit does not count it.

What makes the outer punishment is metal and wood. What makes the inner punishment is stirring and fault. When a small man meets the outer punishment, metal and wood press him hard. When he meets the inner punishment, yin and yang eat him. Only the true man can escape both the outer punishment and the inner.

Confucius said, "The heart of man is more perilous than mountains and rivers, and harder to know than Heaven. Heaven at least has its seasons of spring and autumn, of winter and summer, and of morning and evening, but a man has a thick face and deep feelings.

So there is the man who looks careful and yet goes too far. There is the man who seems superior and yet is worthless. There is the man who seems mild and is quick-tempered, and yet he gets through. There is the man who seems firm and yet is slack. There is the man who seems slow and yet is fierce. So the man who runs toward rightness as though he were thirsty will drop rightness as though it burned him.

So the gentleman sends a man far away and watches his loyalty. He uses him near at hand and watches his respect. He sets him a troublesome task and watches his ability. He questions him all of a sudden and watches his knowledge. He sets him a pressing term and watches his good faith. He puts money in his charge and watches his benevolence. He tells him of danger and watches his firmness. He makes him drunk with wine and watches how he holds himself. He puts him among mixed company and watches his face. When these nine tests have come, the worthless man is picked out."

Zhengkao Fu bowed his body at the first command, bent his back at the second, and stooped low at the third, and he hurried along keeping close to the wall. Who would dare to break the rule before such a man?

But a man like that one stiffens up at the first command, dances on his carriage at the second, and at the third calls his elders by their given names. Who then would keep company with Yao or Xu You?

There is no harm greater than for virtue to have a heart, and for the heart to have an eyelid. Once it has an eyelid it looks inward, and when it looks inward it is ruined.

There are five baleful virtues, and the middle virtue is the chief of them. What is called the middle virtue? The middle virtue is to have something you are pleased with in yourself, and to sneer at what you yourself do not do.

Being blocked has eight extremes, getting through has three certainties, and the body has six storehouses.

Beauty, a fine beard, height, bulk, strength, comeliness, boldness, and daring: all eight of these pass beyond other men, and by them a man is blocked.

Following along after others, bowing oneself low, and being so poor and fearful that one is less than others: all three of these let a man get through.

When knowledge and wit reach outward, a man moves boldly and earns much resentment, and benevolence and rightness bring much blame. The man who gets through to the nature of life is great. The man who gets through to knowledge is small. The man who gets through to the great fate follows along with it. The man who gets through to the small fate takes what comes to him.

A man had audience with the king of Song and was given ten carriages. With those ten carriages he swaggered before Zhuangzi.

Zhuangzi said, "By the river there was a poor household that lived by weaving reed screens. The son dived into the deep pool and got a pearl worth a thousand pieces of gold.

His father said to his son, 'Fetch a stone and break it. A pearl worth a thousand pieces of gold must lie under the chin of a black dragon in a pool nine layers deep. That you could get the pearl means you met him asleep. Had the black dragon been awake, how much of you would be left?'

Now the depth of Song is not merely a pool nine layers deep, and the fierceness of the king of Song is not merely a black dragon. That you could get the carriages means you met him asleep. Had the king of Song been awake, you would have been ground to powder."

Someone called Zhuangzi to office, and Zhuangzi answered the messenger, "Have you seen the ox for the sacrifice? They dress it in patterned silk and feed it fodder and beans. Then, when it is led into the great shrine and the time has come, though it should wish to be a lonely calf, can that be had?"

When Zhuangzi was about to die, his disciples wished to bury him richly. Zhuangzi said, "I take Heaven and earth for my coffin, the sun and the moon for my paired jade discs, the stars for my pearls, and the ten thousand things for the gifts that go with me. Is my burial gear not complete? What would you add to this?"

The disciples said, "We are afraid the crows and the kites will eat you, Master."

Zhuangzi said, "Above ground I will be food for the crows and the kites. Below ground I will be food for the mole crickets and the ants. To take from the one and give to the other, why should you be so partial?"

If you level by what is not level, that levelness is not level. If you summon by what does not summon, that summoning is no summoning. The clear-sighted is only made a servant, and it is the spirit that summons.

The clear-sighted has long been unable to overcome the spirit, and yet the fool leans on what he has seen and goes in among men, so that his work lies outside. Is this not sad?