This chapter has two sets of episodes. The first considers the devious and intractable problems of the Taoist in office: to what extent can he live the enlightened life and hope to bring his ruler nearer to the Way? The second proclaims the advantages of being useless, unemployable, so that the government leaves you alone.
1 FIRST SERIES
Yen Hui called on Confucius and asked leave to travel.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘I am going to Wey.’
‘What will you do there?’
‘I hear that the lord of Wey is young in years and wilful in deeds. He is careless of the cost to his state and blind to his own faults; he is so careless of the cost in men’s lives that the dead fill the state to its borders as though it had been ravaged with fire and slaughter. No, the people have nowhere to turn. I have heard you say, sir: “Never mind the well ruled states, go to the misruled states; at a doctor’s gate it is mostly the sick that call.” I wish to think out what to do in the light of what you taught me, in the hope that the state may be restored to health.’
‘Hmm. I am afraid that you are simply going to your execution. One doesn’t want the Way to turn into a lot of odds and ends. If it does it becomes multiple, when it’s multiple it gets you muddled, when you’re muddled you worry, and once you worry there’s no hope for you. The utmost man of old established in other people only what he had first established in himself. Until it is firmly established in yourself, what time have you to spare for the doings of tyrants?
‘Besides, do you after all understand that the thing by which the Power in us is dissipated is the very thing by which knowledge is brought forth? The Power is dissipated by making a name, knowledge comes forth from competition. To “make a name” is to clash with others, “knowledge” is a tool in competition. Both of them are sinister tools, of no use in perfecting conduct.
‘Then again, to be ample in Power and solid in sincerity but lack insight into others’ temperaments, not enter into competition for reputation but lack insight into others’ hearts, yet insist in the presence of the tyrant on preaching about Goodwill and Duty and the lines laid down for us, this amounts to taking advantage of someone’s ugliness to make yourself look handsome. The name for it is “making a pest of oneself”. Make a pest of oneself, and others will certainly make pests of themselves in return. I rather fancy that someone is going to be a pest to you.
‘Another thing: if you do think he favours clever people and dislikes fools, will it do you any good to try to be especially clever? Better not get into an argument. A king or duke is sure to pit his wits against one’s own with the whole weight of his authority behind him.
Your eye he’ll dazzle,
Your look he’ll cow,
Your mouth he’ll manage,
Your gesture he’ll shape,
Your heart he’ll form.
You will find yourself using fire to quell fire, water to quell water, the name for it is ‘going from bad to worse’. Being submissive at the start that is how you will always be. I am afraid that he will lose faith in your fulsome words, and so you’ll be sure to die at the tyrant’s hands.
‘One more point. Formerly Kuan Lung-feng was executed by Chieh and Prince Pi-kan by Chow. Both were men meticulous in their personal conduct who as ministers offended emperors by sympathising with their subjects. Consequently their lords found their meticulousness a reason to get rid of them. These were men who desired a good name. And formerly Yao attacked Tsung, Chih and Hsü-ao, Yü attacked Yu-hu, the countries were reduced to empty wastes and hungry ghosts, the rulers were executed. There was no end to their calls to arms, no respite in their aspiration to great deeds. All these men were seekers of the name or the deed, and don’t tell me you haven’t heard of them! A good name, a great deed, tempt even the sage, and do you think you’re any better?
‘However, I am sure you have something in mind. Let me hear about it.’
‘Would it do’, said Hui, ‘to be punctilious and impartial, diligent and single-minded?’
‘O no, that’s no good at all! To sustain the Yang at its height without reverting to the Yin puts one under great stress, the tension shows in one’s face. It is something which ordinary people prefer not to defy, so they suppress what the other man is stirring up in them in order to calm their own hearts. Even what are named “powers which progress from day to day” will not grow to the full in him, let alone the supreme Power! He will stay obstinately as he is and refuse to reform, outwardly agreeing with you but inwardly insensible, and what’s the good of that?’
‘In that case, said Hui, ‘inwardly I shall be straight but outwardly I shall bend, I shall mature my own judgement yet conform to my betters. In being “inwardly straight”, I shall be of Heaven’s party. One who is of Heaven’s party knows that in the eyes of Heaven he is just as much a son as the Son of Heaven is, and is he the only one who, when speaking on his own account, has an urge which carries him away and other people applaud, or which carries him away and other people disapprove? Such a one is excused by others as childlike. It is this that I mean by “being of Heaven’s party”.
‘In “outwardly bending” I shall be of man’s party. Lifting up the tablet in his hands and kneeling and bowing from the waist are the etiquette of a minister; everyone else does it, why should I presume to be an exception? If you do what others do, the others for their part will find no fault in you. It is this that I mean by “being of man’s party”.
‘In “maturing my own judgement yet conforming to my betters” I shall be of the party of the men of old. The words, although in substance instructions or criticisms, belong to the men of old, I can’t be held responsible for them. Such a person can be as straight as he likes without getting into trouble. It is this that I mean by “being of the party of the men of old”. How will that do?’
‘Oh no, that’s no good at all! Too much organising. If you stick to the forms and don’t get too familiar, even if you’re stupid you will escape blame. But that’s all that can be said for it. How would you succeed in making a new man of him? It’s still taking the heart as one’s authority.’
‘I have nothing more to propose’, said Hui. ‘I venture to ask the secret of it.’
‘Fast, and I will tell you,’ said Confucius. ‘Doing something thought out in the heart, isn’t that too easy? Whoever does things too easily is unfit for the lucid light of Heaven.’
‘I am of a poor family, I have not drunk wine or eaten a seasoned dish for months. Would that count as fasting?’
‘That kind of fasting one does before a sacrifice, it is not the fasting of the heart.’
‘I venture to inquire about the fasting of the heart.’
‘Unify your attention. Rather than listen with the ear, listen with the heart. Rather than listen with the heart, listen with the energies. Listening stops at the ear, the heart at what tallies with the thought. As for ‘energy’, it is the tenuous which waits to be roused by other things. Only the Way accumulates the tenuous. The attenuating is the fasting of the heart.’
‘When Hui has never yet succeeded in being the agent, a deed derives from Hui. When he does succeed in being its agent, there has never begun to be a Hui. – Would that be what you call attenuating?’
‘Perfect! I shall tell you. You are capable of entering and roaming free inside his cage, but do not be excited that you are making a name for yourself. When the words penetrate, sing your native note; when they fail to penetrate, desist. When there are no doors for you, no outlets, and treating all abodes as one you find your lodgings in whichever is the inevitable, you will be nearly there.
‘To leave off making footprints is easy, never to walk on the ground is hard. What has man for agent is easily falsified, what has Heaven for agent is hard to falsify. You have heard of using wings to fly. You have not yet heard of flying by being wingless; you have heard of using the wits to know, you have not yet heard of using ignorance to know.
‘Look up to the easer of our toils.
In the empty room the brightness grows.
The blessed, the auspicious, stills the stilled.
The about to be does not stay still.
This I call “going at a gallop while you sit”. If the channels inward through eyes and ears are cleared, and you expel knowledge from the heart, the ghostly and daemonic will come to dwell in you, not to mention all that is human! This is to transform with the myriad things, here Shun and Yü found the knot where all threads join, here Fu-hsi and Chi Ch’ü finished their journey, not to speak of lesser men!’
NOTE For Yen Hui (the favourite disciple of Confucius) to go to the King full of good intentions and well thought out plans will do harm in stead of good. He must first train the motions in himself which can spontaneously move another in the direction of the Way. He must trust to the ch‘i (translated ‘energies’), the breath and other energising fluids which alternate between activity as the Yang and passivity as the Yin (as in breathing out and in), training them with the meditative technique including controlled breathing which is mentioned elsewhere (pp. 48, 84, 97). When the purified fluid has become perfectly tenuous the heart will be emptied of conceptual knowledge, the channels of the senses will be cleared, and he will simply perceive and respond. Then the self dissolves, energies strange to him and higher than his own (the ‘daemonic’) enter from outside, the agent of his actions is no longer the man but Heaven working through him, yet paradoxically (and it is in hitting on this paradox that Hui convinces Confucius that he understands) in discovering a deeper self he becomes for the first time truly the agent. He no longer has deliberate goals, the ‘about to be’ at the centre of him belongs to the transforming processes of heaven and earth. Then he will have the instinct for when to speak and when to be silent, and will say the right thing as naturally as a bird sings.
‘To leave off making footprints’: it is easy to withdraw from the world as a hermit, hard to remain above the world while living in it.
Tzŭ-kao the Duke of She, about to go on a mission to Ch’i, consulted Confucius.
‘The mission on which His Majesty has sent me is most weighty; and the way Ch’i treats emissaries, you know, is to be most respectful but put things off indefinitely. It is no use forcing the pace even with a commoner, not to speak of the lord of a state! I am very uneasy about it. You once said to me: “There are few enterprises, great or small, in which we are not under pressure to push for success. If the enterprise fails, we are sure to suffer the penalties of the Way of Man, and if it succeeds we are sure to suffer the maladies of the Yin and Yang. To escape ill consequences whether he succeeds or not only the Man of Power is capable of that.” I am one who sticks to a diet of plain and simple foods, no one at my kitchen stove ever grumbles about the heat, but now I get orders in the morning and by evening am drinking iced water; surely I must be getting a fever? Before I even have access to the facts of the case I am already suffering those “maladies of the Yin and Yang” ; and if the enterprise fails I shall surely suffer your “penalties of the Way of Man” as well. This is getting the worst of it both ways. I am inadequate to bear my responsibilities as a minister, and only hope you have some advice to give me.’
‘In the world there are two supreme commandments,’ said Confucius. ‘One of them is destiny, the other duty. A child’s love of his parents is destined: it cannot be dispelled from the heart. A minister’s service to his lord is duty; wherever he may go his lord is his lord. The commandments from which there is no escape between heaven and earth, these are what I call the supreme ones. This is why in the service of parents there is no higher degree of filial conduct than to live contentedly wherever they may dwell, in the service of a lord no fuller measure of loyalty than to perform his tasks contentedly whatever they may be, and in the service of one’s own heart no higher degree of Power than, without joy and sorrow ever alternating before it, to know that these things could not be otherwise, and be content with them as our destiny. It is inherent in serving either as a son or as a minister that there is something which is inevitable. If you act on the facts of the situation, forgetful of your own person, how can it ever occur to you that it would please you more to save your life than to die? Go, sir, it is well that you should.
‘Allow me to repeat to you some things I have heard. Whenever we are dealing with neighbours we have to rub along with each other on a basis of trust; but with people more distant we have to show our good faith in words, and the words must have some messenger. To pass on the words of parties both of whom are pleased or both of whom are angry with each other is the most difficult thing in the world. In the one case there are sure to be a lot of exaggerated compliments, in the other a lot of exaggerated abuse. Every sort of exaggeration is irresponsible, and if language is irresponsible trust in it fails, and the consequence of that is that the messenger is a doomed man. Therefore the book of rules says: “If you report the straightforward facts and omit the exaggerated language, you will be safe enough.”
‘Another point: competitors in a game of skill begin in a bright Yang mood, but it is apt to end up by darkening to Yin; when they have gone too far they play more and more unfair tricks. Drinkers at a formal banquet are mannerly at first, but generally end up too boisterous; when they have gone too far the fun gets more and more reckless. This happens in all sorts of affairs. What begins as courtly is liable to end up vulgar; things which at the start were simple enough sooner or later are sure to get out of hand. Words are wind and waves, deeds fulfil or discredit them. It is easy for wind and waves to make a stir, and as easy for fulfilment or discrediting to endanger. Therefore the anger which is aroused has no other source than the cunning in wording and bias in phrasing.
‘When an animal faces death it does not choose its cry, the viciousness is in its very breath, and then it generates the blood lust in hunter and hunted alike. If you go too far in trying to force a conclusion, the other is sure to respond with poor judgement, and he will not even know what is happening to him. If he does not even know what is happening to him, who can guess where it will end? Therefore the book of rules says: “Do not deviate from the orders, do not push for success. To exceed due measure is to go beyond your commission.” To deviate from the orders and push for success will endanger the enterprise. A fine success takes time, an ugly outcome is irreparable; can you afford not to be careful?
‘Besides, to let the heart roam with other things as its chariot, and by trusting to the inevitable nurture the centre of you, is the farthest one can go. Why should there be anything you have initiated in the reply you bring back? The important thing is to fulfil what is ordained for you; and that is the most difficult thing of all.’
NOTE It is remarkable to find Chuang-tzŭ talking like a moralist about the ‘duty’ to serve the ruler, especially since elsewhere he always uses the word unfavourably (cf. p. 60 above, ‘Forget the years, forget duty’). However, this is the single episode in which an inquirer is under specific orders from his ruler. Chuang-tzŭ does not question the institutions of family and state, although he does not talk about them much. You do in the last resort acknowledge a duty to the state in which you live, and if by choice or necessity you come to be in office you accept its rules as belonging to the ‘inevitable’. However narrow the limits, as long as you preserve the responsiveness of your energies you can still, like Hui in the last episode, ‘roam free inside the cage’.
‘What is ordained for you’: the king’s decree and/or what Heaven destines for you. Paradoxically, it is supremely difficult to act out your destiny, to surrender to the impulse from Heaven instead of thinking in terms of self-interest and morality (described as ‘too easy’ on p. 68 above).
When Yen Ho was appointed tutor of the heir apparent of Duke Ling of Wey, he inquired of Ch’ü Po-yü
‘Let us imagine the case of a man with a Power in him which Heaven has made murderous. If I behave recklessly in his company it will endanger our country; if I behave decently in his company it will endanger my life. He has just enough wit to know that a man has erred, but not to know why he erred. How would I deal with someone like that?’
‘A good question indeed! Be alert, on guard! Get your own person rightly adjusted! In your demeanour what matters is to get close, in your heart what matters is to be at peace. However, there are difficulties on both points. In getting close you don’t want to be drawn in, and you don’t want the peace in your heart to escape outside. If by your demeanour getting too close you are drawn in, it will be downfall, ruin, collapse, trampling. If the peace in your heart escapes outside, it will become repute, fame, a disaster, a curse.
‘When he wants to play the child, join him in playing the child. When he wants to jump the fences, join him in jumping the fences. When he wants to burst the shores, join him in bursting the shores. Fathom him right through, and be drawn into the unblemished in him.
‘Don’t you know about the praying mantis? It will wave its arms furiously and stand bang in the middle of a rut, it doesn’t know that the weight of the wheel is too much for its strength. This is because the stuff it’s made of is too noble. Be alert, on guard! If you confront him with something accumulating in you which takes pride in your own nobility, you won’t last long. And don’t you know what a keeper of tigers does? He daren’t give them a live animal because they will get into a rage killing it, or a whole animal either, because they will get into a rage tearing it apart. He keeps track of the times when they will be hungry or full, and has the secret of their angry hearts. Tigers are a different breed from men, but when they fawn on the man who feeds them it is because he goes along with their dispositions; and so if they get murderous it is because he thwarts their dispositions.
‘The man who loves his horse will pamper it with a basket for its dung and a clam shell for its piss. But if a fly or mosquito should happen to hover near, and he slaps it unexpectedly, the horse will burst its bit and smash his head and kick in his chest. There was nothing wrong with the intention but the love did damage. You can’t be too careful.’
2 SECOND SERIES
When Carpenter Shih was travelling to Ch’i he came to a village at a bend in the road, and saw the chestnut-leaved-oak by the altar of the god of the soil. It was broad enough to give shade to several thousand oxen and measured by the tape a hundred spans round; it was so high that it overlooked the hills and the lowest branches were seventy feet up; boughs from which you might make a boat could be counted by the dozen. The crowd gazing at it was like the throng in a market, but Carpenter Shih did not give it a glance; he walked straight on without a pause.
When his apprentice had had his fill of gazing at it he ran to catch up with Carpenter Shih.
‘Since I took up the axe to serve you, sir, I have never seen such noble timber. Why is it that you didn’t deign to look at it, didn’t even pause as you walked?’
‘Enough, don’t mention it again. That’s good-for-nothing wood. Make a boat from it and it will sink, make a coffin and it will rot at once, make a bowl and it will break at once, make a gate or door and it will ooze sap, make a pillar and it will be worm-holed. This wood is wretched timber, useless for anything; that’s why it’s been able to grow so old.’
When Carpenter Shih came home, the sacred oak appeared in a dream and said to him
‘With what do you propose to compare me? Would it be with the finegrained woods? As for the sort that bear fruits or berries, the cherry-apple, pear, orange, pumelo, when the fruit ripens they are stripped, and in being stripped they are disgracefully abused, their branches broken, their twigs snapped off. These are trees which by their own abilities make life miserable for themselves; and so they die in mid-path without lasting out the years assigned to them by Heaven, trees which have let themselves be made victims of worldly vulgarity. Such are the consequences with all things. I would add that this quest of mine to become of no possible use to anyone has been going on for a long time: only now, on the verge of death, have I achieved it, and to me it is supremely useful. Supposing that I had been useful too, would I have had the opportunity to grow so big?
‘Besides, you and I are both things, what nonsense! that one of us should think it is the other which is the thing: and the good-for-nothing man who is soon to die, what does he know of the good-for-nothing tree?’
When Carpenter Shih woke up he told his dream.
‘If it prefers to be useless’, said the apprentice, ‘why is it serving as the sacred tree?’
‘Hush! Don’t say it. It’s simply using that as a pretext, thinks of itself as pestered by people who don’t appreciate it. Aren’t the ones which don’t become sacred trees in some danger of being clipped? Besides, what that tree is protecting has nothing to do with the vulgar, and if we praise it for doing a duty won’t we be missing the point?
When Tzŭ-ch’i of Nan-po was rambling on the Hill of Shang, he saw a great tree which stood out from the rest. You could tether a thousand teams of horses to it, and they would all find shelter in its shade.
‘What tree is this?’ said Tzŭ-ch’i. ‘The timber must be quite out of the ordinary, I should think.’
But when he looked up at the slimmer branches, they were too crooked to make beams and rafters. When he looked down at the trunk, the grain was too twisted and loose to make coffins. If you licked a leaf it stung the mouth and left a sore, if you took a sniff it made you delirious for a full three days.
‘This indeed is wretched timber,’ said Tzŭ-ch’i, ‘which is why it has grown to be so big. Aha! That’s why the most daemonic of men are made of such poor stuff!’
There is a place in Sung, Ching-shih, where catalpas, cypresses and mulberries thrive. But a tree an arm-length or two round will be chopped down by someone who wants a post to tether his monkey, a tree of three or four spans by someone seeking a ridge-pole for an imposing roof, a tree of seven or eight spans by the family of a noble or rich merchant looking for a sideplank for his coffin. So they do not last out the years Heaven assigned them, but die in mid-journey under the axe. That is the trouble with being stuff which is good for something. Similarly in the sacrifice to the god of the river it is forbidden to cast into the waters an ox with a white forehead, a pig with a turned-up snout or a man with piles. These are all known to be exempt by shamans and priests, being things they deem bearers of ill-luck. They are the very things which the daemonic man will deem supremely lucky.
Cripple Shu – his chin is buried down in his navel, his shoulders are higher than his crown, the knobbly bone at the base of his neck points at the sky, the five pipes to the spine are right up on top, his two thighbones make another pair of ribs. By plying the needle and doing laundry he makes enough to feed himself, and when he rattles the sticks telling fortunes for a handful of grain he is making enough to feed ten. If the authorities are press-ganging soldiers the cripple strolls in the middle of them flipping back his sleeves; if they are conscripting work parties he is excused as a chronic invalid: if they are doling out grain to the sick he gets three measures, and ten bundles of firewood besides. Even someone crippled in body manages to support himself and last out the years assigned him by Heaven. If you make a cripple of the Power in you, you can do better still!
When Confucius travelled to Ch’u, Chieh Yü the madman of Ch’u wandered at his gate crying
‘Phoenix! Phoenix!
What’s to be done about Power’s decline?
Of the age to come we can’t be sure,
To the age gone by there’s no road back.
When the Empire has the Way
The sage succeeds in it.
When the Empire lacks the Way
The sage survives in it.
In this time of ours, enough
If he dodges execution in it.
Good luck is lighter than a feather,
None knows how to bear its weight.
Mishap is heavier than the earth,
None knows how to get out of the way.
Enough, enough!
Of using Power to reign over men.
Beware, beware!
Of marking ground and bustling us inside.
Thistle, thistle,
Don’t wound me as I walk.
My walk goes backward and goes crooked,
Don’t wound my feet.
The trees in the mountains plunder themselves,
The grease in the flame sizzles itself.
Cinnamon has a taste,
So they hack it down.
Lacquer has a use,
So they strip it off.
All men know the uses of the useful, but no one knows the uses of the useless.’
NOTE cf. Analects of Confucius, chapter 18: ‘Chieh Yü the madman of Ch’u sang as he passed Confucius
“Phoenix! Phoenix!
What’s to be done about Power’s decline?
The past is not worth reproach,
The future we can still pursue.
Enough, enough!
These days to take office is perilous.”
Confucius got down from his carriage and tried to talk with him, but the man hurried off to avoid him, and he did not get the opportunity.’
This ballad ironically welcomes Confucius, preaching ideal government in a decadent age, as the phoenix which comes as an auspicious omen when there is a sage on the throne. Chuang-tzŭ has written a version of his own (it must be his, for the unqualified praise of uselessness is a theme which, even in Chuang-tzŭ, is peculiar to his own writings (cf. pp. 47, 100 below). The use of Chieh Yü as a spokesman of Taoism is also confined to him (cf. pp. 46, 95).