All Under Heaven莊子 雜篇 天下

There are many in the world who practice a method or an art, and every one of them holds that what he has cannot be bettered.

Where then is what the ancients called the art of the Way? It is said, "There is nowhere that it is not."

It is asked, "Where does the spirit come down from? Where does the light come out from?" "The sage is born from something, the king is completed by something, and both take their root in the One."

He who does not depart from the ancestral source is called a heavenly man. He who does not depart from the pure is called a spirit man. He who does not depart from the true is called a perfect man.

He who makes Heaven his ancestor, virtue his root, and the Way his gate, and who shows the first signs of change, is called a sage.

He who makes benevolence his kindness, rightness his order, ritual his conduct, and music his harmony, warm and tender and kind, is called a gentleman.

He who makes law his division, names his outward mark, comparison his proof, and examination his decision, counting them off as one, two, three, four, is doing this same thing. The hundred officials rank one another by it and make their duties their constant work. They put clothing and food first, they breed and rear and store away, they keep in mind the old and the weak and the orphaned and the widowed so that all have the means to be nourished. This is the order of the common people.

The ancients were complete indeed. They matched the spirit and the light, they made Heaven and earth pure, they reared the ten thousand things, they brought the world into harmony, and their bounty reached the hundred families. They were clear about the numbers at the root and bound to the measures at the branch, open in the six directions and in the four, and in small and great, in fine and coarse, there was nowhere their working was not.

What was clear in them and lay in numbers and measures is still to be found in much of the old law handed down by the ages and in the records of the scribes. What lies in the Odes, the Book of Documents, the Rites, and the Music, the scholars of Zou and Lu and the gentlemen of the sash can for the most part make clear.

The Odes speak of what the heart is bent on, the Book of Documents speaks of affairs, the Rites speak of conduct, the Music speaks of harmony, the Book of Changes speaks of yin and yang, and the Spring and Autumn Annals speak of names and their divisions.

Those of their numbers that are scattered through the world and set up in the Middle Kingdom are at times named and spoken of by the learning of the hundred schools.

The world is in great disorder. The worthy and the sage are not clear, the Way and virtue are not one, and many in the world catch sight of one corner and are pleased with themselves.

It is as with the ear and the eye and the nose and the mouth. Each has something it makes clear, but they cannot pass into one another. So it is with the many crafts of the hundred schools. Each has its strength, and at times each has its use. Even so, they are neither complete nor universal. They are scholars of one bend of the road.

They cut apart the beauty of Heaven and earth, they split up the order of the ten thousand things, they pick over the wholeness of the ancients. Few are able to encompass the beauty of Heaven and earth or to speak of the face of the spirit and the light.

So the way of the sage within and the king without is darkened and unclear, choked and unopened, and everyone in the world does what he himself desires and makes of it a method of his own.

Alas! The hundred schools go and do not turn back, and they will surely never meet. The scholars of later ages have the misfortune not to see the purity of Heaven and earth and the great body of the ancients, and the art of the Way is about to be torn apart by the world.

Not to be extravagant toward later ages, not to waste the ten thousand things, not to make a show of numbers and measures, but to set oneself straight by the marking line and be ready for what the age urgently needs: the art of the Way of the ancients had something in this.

Mo Di and Qin Huali heard of this manner and delighted in it. They carried the doing of it much too far, and they held themselves back much too far.

He wrote Against Music and named it Moderation in Use. In life there was no singing, in death no mourning garb.

Mozi loved all alike and sought the benefit of all and condemned fighting, and his way had no anger in it. He loved learning too and was broad in it. He would not be different from others, yet he was not the same as the former kings, for he tore down the rites and music of the ancients.

The Yellow Emperor had the Xianchi, Yao had the Dazhang, Shun had the Dashao, Yu had the Daxia, Tang had the Dahuo, King Wen had the music of the Biyong hall, and King Wu and the Duke of Zhou made the Wu.

In the mourning rites of the ancients there were forms for the noble and the base and grades for high and low. The coffin and outer coffin of the Son of Heaven were seven layers, those of a feudal lord five layers, those of a high officer three layers, those of a gentleman two layers.

Now Mozi alone would have no singing in life and no mourning garb in death, and a paulownia coffin three inches thick with no outer coffin, and he made this the rule and the pattern.

To teach others by this is, one fears, not to love others; to practice it oneself is surely not to love oneself. Mozi's way is not to be torn down yet. Even so, when there should be singing he condemns singing, when there should be weeping he condemns weeping, when there should be joy he condemns joy. Is this really the way of human kind?

Their life is toilsome and their death is meager, and their way is very harsh. It makes people anxious, it makes people sad, and its practice is hard to carry out. One fears it cannot be the way of a sage. It goes against the heart of the world, and the world cannot bear it. Though Mozi alone could take it on, what is to be done with the world? Cut off from the world, he is far indeed from kingship.

Mozi praised the Way and said, "In old times Yu dammed the great flood. He cut channels for the Jiang and the He and opened a way to the four barbarian lands and the nine provinces. Famous rivers numbered three hundred, branch rivers three thousand, and the small ones were beyond counting.

Yu himself took up basket and spade and gathered the rivers of the world into nine channels. There was no flesh on his calves and no hair on his shins. The pelting rain washed his hair and the driving wind combed it, and he set up the ten thousand states. Yu was a great sage, and yet he wore out his body for the world like this."

So the Mohists of later ages mostly wear skins and coarse cloth and put wooden clogs and straw sandals on their feet. They do not rest day or night and make the afflicting of themselves their highest aim, and they say, "One who cannot do this is not following the way of Yu and is not fit to be called a Mohist."

The disciples of Xiangli Qin and the followers of Wuhou, and the Mohists of the south, Ku Huo and Yi Chi and Deng Lingzi and their kind, all recite the Mohist Canon, and yet they turn away from one another and differ, and each calls the other a Mohist apart.

They abuse one another with arguments over hardness and whiteness and sameness and difference, and they answer one another with words of odd and even that do not match. They take their head man for a sage and all wish to stand as his image at the sacrifice and hope to be his successors. To this day it is not settled.

The intent of Mo Di and Qin Huali was right, but their practice was wrong. They would only make the Mohists of later ages afflict themselves and press forward against one another in having no flesh on the calves and no hair on the shins. It is the highest kind of disorder and the lowest kind of order.

Even so, Mozi was one who truly loved the world. He sought it and could not find it, and though he withered and dried up he would not let go. A man of talent indeed!

Not to be tied down by custom, not to be adorned by things, not to be false toward others, not to go against the crowd, to wish the world at peace so that the people may live out their lives, to stop when the nourishing of others and of oneself is enough, and by this to make the heart white: the art of the Way of the ancients had something in this.

Song Xing and Yin Wen heard of this manner and delighted in it. They made caps in the shape of Mount Hua to mark themselves out, and in meeting the ten thousand things they began by setting apart what blinds the mind.

They spoke of what the heart holds and named it the movement of the heart. With gentleness they gathered men into good cheer and brought the whole land within the seas into tune, and they asked that this be set up as the ruling thing.

Insulted, they counted it no disgrace, and so they saved the people from quarreling. They forbade attack and laid weapons to rest, and so they would save the age from war.

With this they went all through the world, persuading those above and teaching those below. Though the world would not take them, they clamored on and would not let go. So it is said: above and below they were loathed, and still they pressed themselves forward.

Even so, they did too much for others and too little for themselves. They said, "Let five pints of rice be set aside and that will be enough." The master feared he would not eat his fill, and the disciples, though hungry, did not forget the world.

Day and night they did not rest, and they said, "I will surely keep them alive!" How great in purpose were these men who would save the age!

They said, "The gentleman does not pry into small matters and does not lend his body to things."

They held that what brings no benefit to the world is better left off than made clear. They made the forbidding of attack and the laying down of arms their outward work, and the thinning and lessening of desire their inward work. In small and great, in fine and coarse, their practice went just this far and stopped.

Impartial and not leaning to one side, level and without private ends, decided and with no master over them, following things and not dividing in two, not looking back on deliberation, not scheming with knowledge, making no choice among things but going along with them: the art of the Way of the ancients had something in this.

Peng Meng and Tian Pian and Shen Dao heard of this manner and delighted in it. They made the leveling of the ten thousand things their first principle and said, "Heaven can cover them but cannot bear them up; earth can bear them up but cannot cover them; the great Way can hold them all but cannot tell them apart. One knows that in the ten thousand things there is what is allowed and what is not allowed. So it is said, choose and you will not be universal, teach and you will not reach, but the Way leaves nothing out."

So Shen Dao threw away knowledge and put aside self and followed only what could not be helped. He let things wash over him coolly and made this the order of the Way, and he said that knowing is not knowing. He would make knowledge thin, and then he would draw near it and do it harm.

Loose and shiftless, taking no charge, he laughed at the world for honoring the worthy. Unbound and without conduct, he condemned the great sages of the world.

He beat with the hammer and pared off the corners and rolled and turned along with things. He put aside right and wrong and held that if only he could get free, that was enough. He took neither knowledge nor deliberation for his teacher, he did not know front from back, and he simply stood up alone.

Pushed, he went; dragged, he followed. He was like a whirlwind turning, like a feather spinning, like a millstone going round. He was whole, with nothing wrong in him, faultless in motion and in stillness, and he was never once at fault.

How did this come about? A thing without knowledge has no trouble of setting up a self and no burden of using knowledge. In motion and in stillness it does not depart from the order of things, and so all its life it is never praised.

So he said, "Come to be like a thing without knowledge, and that is all. There is no use for the worthy or the sage. A clod of earth does not lose the Way."

The men of spirit laughed at him together and said, "The way of Shen Dao is not the conduct of the living but reaches only the order of the dead. It is strange, and no more."

Tian Pian was the same. He studied under Peng Meng and got from him what is not taught. The teacher of Peng Meng said, "The men of the Way in old times came only to this, that nothing is right and nothing is wrong. Their manner passed by like a rush of wind. How can it be put into words?"

He always went against others, and no one looked to him, and he did not escape the paring of corners. What he called the Way was not the Way, and the rightness he spoke of did not escape being wrong.

Peng Meng and Tian Pian and Shen Dao did not know the Way. Even so, in a rough way they had all heard something of it.

To take the root for the fine and things for the coarse, to count the having of a store as not enough, to dwell calm and alone with the spirit and the light: the art of the Way of the ancients had something in this.

Guan Yin and Lao Dan heard of this manner and delighted in it. They built it upon the constant nonbeing and being and made the Great One its master. They took softness and weakness and humility and lowliness for their outward mark, and emptiness that does not destroy the ten thousand things for their substance.

Guan Yin said, "When there is no dwelling in the self, things with form show themselves. Its movement is like water, its stillness like a mirror, its answer like an echo.

Dim, as though it were not there; still, as though it were clear. Those who are one with it are in harmony, and those who try to get it lose it. It has never gone before others but always follows them."

Lao Dan said, "Know the male, keep to the female, and be the ravine of the world. Know the white, keep to the soiled, and be the valley of the world."

Others all take what is first; he alone takes what is last, and he says that he receives the filth of the world. Others all take what is solid; he alone takes what is empty. He stores nothing, and so he has more than enough, towering with more than enough.

In carrying his body through life he was unhurried and spent nothing. He did nothing, and he laughed at cleverness. Others all seek good fortune; he alone bends and stays whole, and he says that he only escapes blame.

He made depth his root and sparingness his guiding thread, and he said that what is hard will be broken and what is sharp will be blunted. He was always broad and forgiving toward things and took nothing away from others. This may be called the utmost.

Guan Yin and Lao Dan! Truly the broad and great true men of old!

Dim and silent and without form, changing with nothing constant. Is it death? Is it life? Does it stand together with Heaven and earth? Does it go where the spirit and the light go? Vague, where does it go? Sudden, where does it arrive? The ten thousand things are all spread out, and not one of them is enough to return to. The art of the Way of the ancients had something in this.

Zhuang Zhou heard of this manner and delighted in it. With far and wandering sayings, with reckless words, with phrases that have neither end nor edge, he let himself go at times and yet did not take sides, and he did not show things from one corner only.

He held the world to be sunk and muddied and not to be spoken to in grave language. With goblet words he let his meaning spread out, with weighty words he made it true, with lodged words he made it broad.

Alone he came and went with the spirit of Heaven and earth, and yet he did not look down on the ten thousand things. He did not scold at right and wrong, and he lived among the ways of the world.

His writing, though it is grand and strange, winds along and does no harm. His words, though they are uneven, are droll and worth looking at.

What filled him could not be stopped. Above he wandered with the maker of things, and below he made friends with those who put death and life outside themselves and have no end and no beginning.

As to the root, he was vast and open, deep and wide and unrestrained. As to the ancestral source, it may be said that he was closely fitted to it and went up and through.

Even so, in answering to change and loosening the knots of things, his order is never used up and what comes from him is never sloughed off. Vague and dark, it has not been used to the end.

Hui Shi had many methods, and his writings filled five carts, but his way was crooked and jumbled and his words did not hit the mark.

He set out the meaning of things in order and said, "The greatest thing, which has nothing outside it, is called the Great One. The smallest thing, which has nothing inside it, is called the Small One.

What has no thickness cannot be piled up, and yet its size is a thousand li.

Heaven is as low as earth, and mountains are as level as marshes.

The sun at noon is the sun declining, and a thing at birth is a thing dying.

Great sameness differs from small sameness, and this is called the small sameness and difference. The ten thousand things are all the same and all different, and this is called the great sameness and difference.

The south has no limit and yet has a limit, and I go to Yue today and came there yesterday.

Linked rings can be parted.

I know the center of the world. It is north of Yan and south of Yue.

Love the ten thousand things without stint, for Heaven and earth are one body."

Hui Shi thought this great and showed it to the world and opened the eyes of the debaters, and the debaters of the world took delight in it together.

An egg has hairs. A chicken has three feet. Ying holds the world. A dog may be called a sheep. A horse lays eggs. A toad has a tail. Fire is not hot. A mountain comes out of a mouth. A wheel does not tread on the ground. The eye does not see. Pointing does not reach, and what reaches is not cut off. A tortoise is longer than a snake. The carpenter's square is not square, and the compass cannot make a circle. A chisel hole does not close round its handle. The shadow of a flying bird has never moved. There is a moment when a barbed arrow at full speed is neither going nor at rest. A dog is not a dog. A yellow horse and a black ox are three. A white dog is black. An orphan colt has never had a mother. Take a stick one foot long and take away half of it each day, and in ten thousand generations it will not be used up.

With these things the debaters answered Hui Shi all their lives and never came to an end.

Huan Tuan and Gongsun Long were of the company of the debaters. They dressed up men's hearts and changed men's minds. They could overcome men's mouths but could not win men's hearts. This is the pen the debaters live in.

Hui Shi day after day used his knowledge to dispute with others, and with the debaters of the world he made strange things above all else. This was the root of it.

Yet in the talk of his mouth Hui Shi held himself the worthiest of all, and he said, "Could even Heaven and earth match this!" Hui Shi had the bold spirit but no art of the Way.

In the south there was an odd man named Huang Liao, who asked why Heaven does not fall and earth does not sink, and what the cause is of wind and rain and thunder and lightning. Hui Shi answered without excusing himself and replied without thinking. He gave an account of every one of the ten thousand things, talking on without rest and saying much without stopping, and still he thought it too little, so he added strange things to it.

He made the crossing of others his substance and wished to make a name by overcoming others, and so he did not fit with the crowd. He was weak in virtue and strong in things, and his road ran into a corner.

Look at Hui Shi's powers by the way of Heaven and earth, and they are like the labor of one mosquito, one gadfly. What use are they to things? To fill out one thing is still all right. Had he said that the Way is worth more, he would have been near it.

Hui Shi could not find peace in this. He scattered himself among the ten thousand things and never tired of it, and in the end he got the name of a fine debater.

What a pity! Hui Shi's talent ran loose and took hold of nothing. He chased the ten thousand things and did not turn back. This is to try to still an echo with more sound, and to race the body against its own shadow. How sad!