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Chapter 32 of 33
庄子
🌊 Liezi Startled by the Porridge Sellers
Lie Yukou set out for the state of Qi, but turned back halfway. Meeting Bо́hun Mangren, he was asked, "Why have you returned halfway?" Liezi said, "I was startled." Asked why, Liezi replied, "I stopped at ten porridge shops to eat, and five of them rushed to serve me first." Bóhun Mangren said, "If that is so, why should you be startled?" Liezi said, "When inner sincerity has not dispersed, it shines outward through the appearance. Using that appearance to overawe people's hearts causes them to slight their elders and invites disaster. The porridge sellers were only doing a small food trade, with no surplus profit, meager gains, and little power, yet they still treated me this way—how much more so with a lord of ten thousand chariots? His body is worn by state affairs, his wisdom exhausted by governance. He would entrust affairs to me and demand results. That is why I was startled." Bóhun Mangren said, "You have observed well! Settle yourself, and people will come to attach themselves to you!" Shortly after, Bóhun Mangren went to see Liezi—sandals were already lined up outside the door. Bóhun Mangren stood facing north, leaning on his staff with it pressed against his chin. After standing for a while, he left without speaking. The doorkeeper reported this to Liezi, who grabbed his sandals and ran barefoot to the gate, saying, "Since you have come, why not leave me a word of medicine-stone counsel?" Bóhun Mangren said, "Enough. I already told you: people will attach themselves to you. Now indeed they attach themselves to you! It is not that you can make them attach themselves to you—it is that you cannot make them not attach themselves to you. Why must you use influence and charm to appear extraordinary? If you insist on exerting influence, it will shake your inborn nature, and that serves no purpose. Those who associate with you will not admonish you. The trivial words they speak are nothing but poison to others. Unawakened and unenlightened, how can they mutually illuminate one another? The clever labor, the wise worry, while the capable of nothing seek nothing—fed, they roam, drifting like an unmoored boat. That is the one who wanders with an empty heart."
🌱 The Tragedy of Zheng Ren Huan
There was a man named Huan in the state of Zheng who recited and studied in the Qiu family region. After only three years, Huan became a Ruist scholar. His grace spread like river water nourishing nine li, benefiting his three clans, and he even sent his younger brother to study the Mohist school. Later, when Ruists and Mohists debated against each other, the father sided with the younger brother Di. Ten years later, Huan of Zheng killed himself. His father dreamed of him saying, "The one who made your son a Mohist was me. Did you ever come to look at my grave? The autumn cypress has already borne fruit upon it." The Creator rewards people not for their artificial constructs but for their natural endowment. The younger brother's nature was such that he became a Mohist. But Huan believed he himself was extraordinary, and so he slighted his own kin. This is like the people of Qi who wrestled with each other over well water. Thus it is said: all people today are like Huan. Those with virtue do not yet understand this—how much less those with the Way! The ancients called this escaping the punishment of nature. The sage rests in what ought to be rested in, and does not rest in what ought not to be rested in. The multitude rests in what ought not to be rested in, and does not rest in what ought to be rested in.
🍃 Easy to Know the Way, Hard to Keep Silent
Zhuangzi said: "Knowing the Way is easy; not speaking of it is difficult. To know and not speak points toward the natural. To know and speak it points toward the artificial. The ancients took the natural and not the artificial." Zhu Pingman studied dragon-slaying technique from Zhi Liyi, exhausting a fortune of a thousand pieces of gold. After three years he mastered it, yet had no place to exercise his skill. The sage treats what is certain as uncertain, and therefore does not stir up conflict. The multitude treat what is uncertain as certain, and therefore are much given to conflict. Following conflict, action becomes grasping. Relying on conflict leads to ruin. The shallow person's mind does not leave behind courtesy gifts and correspondence; they exhaust their spirit on trivial pursuits, yet wish to embrace both the Way and things, to unify the Great One with form and emptiness. Such people are confounded by the myriad phenomena of the cosmos, dragged down by their bodies and unaware of the Great Beginning. But the Perfect Person returns their spirit to the beginningless and rests soundly in the land of Nothingwhatsoever. Water flows without form, pouring forth from the Great Purity. Pitiful! Your mind dwells only on the tip of a hair, yet knows nothing of the Great Stillness.
💬 Cao Shang Licks Hemorrhoids
There was a man of Song named Cao Shang, sent by the Duke of Song as an envoy to the state of Qin. On departure, he received several chariots. The King of Qin pleased with him, increased the grant to a hundred chariots. Returning to Song, he met Zhuangzi and said, "Dwelling in destitution in narrow alleys, weaving sandals in hard circumstances, neck withered and face sallow—this is what I, Cao Shang, cannot do. But awakening a lord of ten thousand chariots from obscurity, with a retinue of a hundred chariots—this is where my strength lies." Zhuangzi said: "When the King of Qin is ill, he summons physicians. One who can lance sores and drain pus gets one chariot. One who licks hemorrhoids gets five chariots. The lower the part treated, the more chariots awarded. Could it be that you treated his hemorrhoids? Otherwise, how did you earn so many chariots? Get out of my sight!"
🎭 Yan He on Confucius
Duke Ai of Lu asked Yan He: "If I make Confucius the pillar of the state, will the country perhaps be well governed?" Yan He said: "Dangerous—extremely precarious! Confucius is adorning feathers and then adding more patterns, engaging in florid rhetoric, making branches the core, suppressing his nature to display himself before the people—yet he does not know and does not trust. Driven by the mind, governed by the spirit—how can he stand above the people? Is he fit for the kind of employment you and I would give? It might do for a misguided use. Now, to make the people leave the real and learn the false—this is not the right way to present to the people. For the sake of later generations, it would be better to let him be. It is hard to govern with him!" To bestow grace on others and keep remembering it is not natural giving—even a merchant would not deign to mention it. Even if it is mentioned by circumstance, in spirit one scorns it. External punishment is metal and wood. Internal punishment is agitation and fault. The petty person suffers external punishment by metal and wood in interrogation; suffers internal punishment as yin and yang qi corrode him. One who can escape both external and internal punishment—only the True Person.
👁 Confucius on Knowing People
Confucius said: "The human heart is more perilous than mountains, harder to know than heaven. Heaven still has its fixed seasons of spring, summer, autumn, winter, and dawn, but people hide their true depth beneath thick appearances. Thus there are those whose outward demeanor is respectful but whose heart is proud; those who seem mature but are unworthy; those whose surface is cautious and tense but whose inner self is fluent; those whose outer firmness conceals inner dissipation; those whose surface is relaxed but whose inner nature is fierce. Thus people pursue righteousness as if thirsty for water, and abandon it as if escaping heat. The gentleman sends them on distant errands to observe their loyalty; keeps them nearby to observe their reverence; tests them with difficult affairs to observe their ability; suddenly questions them to observe their wisdom; imposes urgent deadlines to observe their trustworthiness; entrusts them with wealth to observe their benevolence; tells them of danger to observe their integrity; makes them drunk to observe their comportment; sets them among mixed company to observe their countenance. When these nine tests are complete, the unworthy are revealed clearly."
⛰ Humility and the Poverty That Comes of Pretension
Zheng Kaofu—at his first appointment he bent at the waist; at his second, he bowed deeply; at his third, he pressed himself to the ground, hugging the wall as he walked. Who would not revere the law he kept! But as for those others: at first appointment they strut and swell, at second they dance on their vehicle, at third they address elders by their personal names with haughty familiarity. Who can match the modesty of Tang Yao and Xu You? The greatest harm is deliberate virtue with eyes growing within the heart; once the inner eyes appear, one gazes inward—and gazing inward ruins the inborn quality! There are five kinds of ominous virtue, and the middle virtue leads them. What is the middle virtue? It is clinging stubbornly to one's own likes and slandering what one does not do oneself. There are eight extremes of poverty: comeliness, a fine beard, height, great build, strength, brilliance, courage, and boldness—all eight exceed ordinary measure, and yet can lead to failure. There are three mandates of flourishing: compliance, deferring, yielding—all three place one beneath others, yet one flourishes. The body has six storehouses: intelligence displayed, fierce action, benevolence over-critical—these six mutually wound each other. One who is fluent in his essential nature may be called great; one who is merely fluent in cleverness is petty; one who is fluent in the Great Mandate is transformative; one who is fluent in the petty mandate simply runs through encounters."
🐉 Deceptions of the Black Dragon's Pearl and the Sacrificial Ox
Someone had an audience with the King of Song and was awarded ten chariots, which he showed off to Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi said: "By the river lived a poor family that supported itself by weaving reed mats. The son dove into the deep gorge and found a pearl worth a thousand in gold. His father said to the son: 'Bring a stone and shatter it! A pearl of a thousand in gold can only lie beneath the chin of the dark dragon in the ninefold abyss. You could get it only because the dragon was asleep. Were the dragon awake—could you have kept even a particle?' Now the shallows of Song are deeper than a ninefold abyss; the ferocity of the King of Song is greater than that of the dark dragon. You got chariots only because he was asleep. Should the King of Song wake—you would be ground to powder." Someone came to invite Zhuangzi to service. Zhuangzi answered the messenger: "Have you seen the sacrificial ox? Wickered in embroidered brocade, fed on grass and beans. When it is finally led into the great ancestral hall, even should it wish to be a lonely little calf again, what can it do about it?"
🌙 How Zhuangzi Died
Zhuangzi was dying. His disciples wanted to bury him lavishly. Zhuangzi said: "I take heaven and earth as my outer and inner coffin, the sun and moon as twin linked jade, the stars as pearls, the ten thousand things as my funeral goods. Are my burial preparations not complete? What could be added to this!" His disciples said: "We fear that crows and kites will eat the Master's body." Zhuangzi said: "Left above ground, eaten by crows and kites; buried below ground, eaten by mole crickets and ants. To steal from the crows and give to the ants—how partial that would be!" To level with imbalance—such leveling does not level. To measure with immeasurable measures—such measuring does not measure. The clear-sighted one is but a servant to things; the one whose spirit is whole can verify truly. That clarity is inferior to spiritual wholeness has long been so; yet the foolish cling to their own sight and force it upon others, their effectiveness external to them—is that not pitiful?
This chapter is a series of parables woven together to argue for shedding outward display and returning to the natural. The core is "the heavenly, not the human": artificial striving, cleverness, merit, fame, and deliberate virtue all cause people to slip away from their inborn nature and invite internal and external punishments. Liezi's inner brilliance had begun to attract others' attachment; Bóhun Mangren identifies that the problem is not "being able to make others attach themselves" but "being unable to keep them from attaching"—even that is still on the shimmering surface. The man Huan of Zheng treats his brother's success as his own deed, yet contracts the punishment of escaping nature. Cao Shang, the man gifted chariots, and the sacrificial ox—these all hand their lives over to systems of power and reward. Confucius's nine tests for knowing people are serviceable but belong to the level of the "clear-sighted," and are inferior to the true verification of "spiritual wholeness." Finally, Zhuangzi closes with his own view of death: not clinging even to the manner of one's burial—therein lies true equality and true naturalness.
"The five porridge sellers handing it over first" plays like someone overwhelmed by traffic, attention, and fixation today. What startles Liezi—people being kind to you for no reason, not necessarily because you deserve it, but because the "shine" you radiate is being picked up by the system. Bóhun Mangren's warning is even deeper. Once you grow accustomed to attachment and demand, you lose the freedom to "make others not attach to you." Along our current path: "The more you are seen, the more you are anxious," that sensation comes from his point too.
Zhu Pingman learning dragon-slaying ironically mirrors our progress of hoarding "skills" and life survival-technologies; "the clever labor, the wise worry" is generous-a narrative antidote for staying in a life spent refining talents yet lost otherwise says many did end toward, losing yet less inward other on many growing a deeper quest for adding already good thoughts complete thinking both doing both at the emotional "risk-compile states where habit turns in this wrong way?"
The Cao Shang anecdote exposes the humiliation built into reward systems: when a person wins resources that are all possible only with an authority token-value at still points through its kinds at ever own lower stations at risk within needs from the value carried indeed. "Hi-li-wielding drives body-aloud like running titles" For ease with but asking to start from him back look" how should you within things count, how much of all such might wish to salvage one's not-made commodity...
Finally "Zhuangzi Dying" offers an extreme-but-equalizing economic way to look at moments
of burial of one-sided which approaches this moment without ranking equal very so to constant forms is this real completion plainly such not make title become again?
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Beyond its wonderful con / an alert, chapter offers an overlooked switch: ** "Ming"** & "Shem" The former is analytic, still "division of mind," with operations of concrete using series — is of current with Zhu’s nine roads verification scheme —? The is complete natural psychic. "To need rather: for its... She cites that sort familiar intuitive. Later: when 'discerning' when own might appear smarter, were but measured," it made. On while.
zhu’s whole system escapes of social when behavior sees external — but immediately new field which Self establishes kind heart-positions through inward obs — Self-knowledge had become means colonials; A conscious attempt hence habit.
worse.
That line ultimately is real shape meaning's every those:
real non-on earth; aware non simply letting of home moral laws value
far ancient