This last of the Inner chapters collects Chuang-tzŭ’s few observations on ideal kingship. For the Syncretist editor this would be the greatest of themes, but it is plain that to find anything remotely relevant in Chuang-tzŭ’s literary remains he had to scrape the bottom of the barrel. The first item is the conclusion of a dialogue already used in chapter 2 (p. 58 above); he must have chopped it off and added the introduction which resumes the previous exchanges (‘Gaptooth asked questions of Wang Ni, four times asked and four times he did not know’).
The editor found only four items directly concerned with kingship, which we distinguish as the ‘First series’. The ‘Second series’ illustrates aspects of sagehood which he perhaps thought especially relevant to government. Thus his reason for including the penultimate episode (p. 98 below) might be that it introduces the metaphor of the sage’s heart as a mirror, important in the Syncretist theory of kingship (p. 259 below).
1 FIRST SERIES
Gaptooth asked questions of Wang Ni, four times asked and four times he did not know. So Gaptooth hopped about in great delight, and went on a journey to tell Master Reedcoat.
‘Didn’t you know it until now?’ said Master Reedcoat. ‘The House of Yu-yü is not equalling the House of T’ai. Our Emperor, yes, he still keeps a store of kindness to get a hold on men, and he does indeed win them, but he has never begun to draw from the source which is not man. He of the House of T’ai slept sound and woke up fresh; at one moment he deemed himself the logician’s “horse”, at the next his “ox”; his knowledge was essential and trustworthy, the Power in him utterly genuine, and he had never begun to enter a realm which is not man.’
NOTE Gaptooth and his friends live under the rule of the legendary Shun (whose family was the Yu-yü), one of the ideal sages of Confucians. But Shun preferred the morality which is from man to the spontaneity which is from Heaven. Chuang-tzŭ would rather imagine a sage in the remotest past (the meaning of Τ’ai is ‘ultimate’) before there was even the dichotomy of Heaven and man, long before there were logicians distinguishing between ‘X’ and ‘Y’ ‘ox’ and ‘horse’.
Chien Wu visited mad Chieh Yü.
‘What did Noonbegin tell you?’ asked mad Chieh Yü.
‘He told me that a lord of men issues on his own authority rules, conventions, forms and regulations, and who dares refuse to obey and be reformed by them?’
‘That’s a bullying sort of a Power. As far as ordering the Empire is concerned, you might as well go wading through oceans, boring holes in rivers, or comanding mosquitos to carry mountains on their backs. When the sage sets in order, is he ordering the external? It is simply a matter of straightening oneself out before one acts, of being solidly capable of doing one’s own work.
‘The birds fly high to be out of danger from the stringed arrows, the field-mice go burrowing deep under the sacred hill, where no one can trouble them by digging down and smoking them out. Even those two creatures know better than that.’
Heaven-based roamed on the south side of Mount Vast, and came to the bank of the River Limpid. Happening to meet a man without a name, he asked him.
‘Permit me to inquire how one rules the Empire.’
‘Away! You’re a bumpkin! What a dreary thing to talk about! I am just in the course of becoming fellow man with the maker of things; and when I get bored with that, I shall ride out on the bird which fades into the sky beyond where the six directions end, to travel the realm of Nothingwhatever and settle in the wilds of the Boundless. What do you mean by stirring up thoughts in my heart about such a trifle as ruling the Empire?’
He repeated the question. Said the man without a name
‘Let your heart roam in the flavourless, blend your energies with the featureless, in the spontaneity of your accord with other things leave no room for selfishness, and the Empire will be order.’
NOTE This is the single passage which specifically distinguishes two stages of sagehood: (1) the ecstatic roaming as ‘fellow man with the maker of things’, without yet ceasing to be human, like the two mourners singing to the zither who shocked Confucius (p. 89 above); (2) the final withdrawal into the impassivity beyond life and death of the mourner Meng-sun (p. 90 above), for whom past and present are the same, and everyone else is as much ‘I’ as he is, and all the experience of the senses is revealed as a dream. It is a curious paradox of the Taoist mockery of deliberation that the final take-off seems to depend on a choice, perhaps on the verge of death. Confucius says of the cripple Wang T’ai that he ‘will pick his own day to rise out of the world (p. 77 above).
What is significant about the nameless man’s remarks about government is not the content but the perspective in which the government of the Empire is seen; it is of negligible importance, yet as important as anything else in the world.
Yang Tzŭ-chü visited Old Tan.
‘Suppose we have a man’, he said, ‘who is alert, energetic, well informed, clear-headed and untiring in learning the Way: may someone like that be ranked with the enlightened Kings?’
‘To the sage this is a slave’s drudgery, an artisan’s bondage, wearing out the body, fretting the heart. Besides, it’s the elegant markings of tiger and leopard which attract the hunter, and it’s the spryest of monkeys and the dog which catches the rat that get themselves on the leash. Can someone like that be ranked with the enlightened kings?’
Yang Tzŭ-chü was taken aback.
‘May I ask how an enlightened king rules?’
‘When the enlightened king rules
His deeds spread over the whole world
but seem not from himself:
His riches are loaned to the myriad things
but the people do not depend on him.
He is there, but no one mentions his name.
He lets things find their own delight.
He is one who keeps his foothold in the immeasurable and roams where nothing is.’
2 SECOND SERIES
In Cheng there was a daemonic shaman called Chi Hsien, who knew whether a man would live or die, be ruined or saved, be lucky or unlucky, be cut off too soon or last out his term, and set the date within a year, a month, ten days, the day; it was daemonic, no less. When the people of Cheng saw him they all shunned him and fled. When Lieh-tzŭ saw him he was drunk at heart, and returned to tell Hu-tzŭ about him.
‘Master, once I thought that your Way was the highest, but there is another which is higher still.’
‘With you I have exhausted its scriptures but not yet exhausted its substance: have you really grasped the Way? With so many hens but no cock, what eggs can you expect from them? In matching the Way to the world you have to exert yourself too actively, and that is how you give a man the opportunity to read your face. Try bringing him here, let him take a look at me.’
Next day Lieh-tzŭ did bring him to see Hu-tzŭ. Coming out, the man said to Lieh-tzŭ
“Hmm, your master is a dead man. He won’t revive, his days are not to be counted in tens. I saw a strange thing in him, saw damp ash in him.’
Lieh-tzŭ went in with tears soaking the lapels of his coat, and told Hu-tzŭ about it.
‘Just now’, said Hu-tzŭ, ‘I showed him the formation of the ground. The shoots as they went on sprouting were without vibration but without pause. I should think he saw me as I am when I hold down the impulses of the Power. Try bringing him here again.’
Next day he brought him to see Hu-tzŭ again. Coming out, he told Lieh-tzŭ
‘A lucky thing your master happened to meet me! He’s recovered, the ash is aflame, he’s alive. I saw him holding down the arm of the scales.’
Lieh-tzŭ went in and told Hu-tzŭ.
‘Just now’, said Hu-tzŭ, ‘I showed him Heaven and the fertilised ground. Names and substances had not found a way in, but the impulses were coming up from my heels. I should think he saw my impulses towards the good. Try bringing him here again.’
Next day he brought him to see Hu-tzŭ again. Coming out, he told Lieh-tzŭ
‘Your master does not fast, I cannot read anything in his face. Let him try fasting, I’ll read his face again.’
Lieh-tzŭ went in and told Hu-tzŭ.
‘Just now I showed him the absolute emptiness where there is no foreboding of anything. I should think he saw me as I am when I level out the impulses of the breath. Try bringing him here again.’
Next day he brought him to see Hu-tzŭ again. Before the man had come to a standstill he lost his head and ran.
‘Go after him,’ said Hu-tzŭ.
Lieh-tzŭ went after him but failed to catch up. He returned and reported to Hu-tzŭ
‘He’s vanished, he’s lost, I couldn’t catch up.’
‘Just now’, said Hu-tzŭ, ‘I showed him how it is before ever we come out of our Ancestor.
With him I attenuated, wormed in and out,
Unknowing who or what we were.
It made him think he was fading away,
It made him think he was carried off on the waves.
That’s why he fled.’
Only then did Lieh-tzŭ conclude that he had never begun to learn, and went off home. For three years he did not leave the house.
He cooked the dinner for his wife,
Fed the pigs as though feeding people,
Remained aloof in all his works.
From the carved gem he returned to the unhewn block:
Unique, in his own shape, he took his stand.
Didn’t tidy up the raggle-taggle.
That’s how he was to the end of his days.
NOTE Here as in chapter 1 (p. 44 above) Lieh-tzŭ is the Taoist led astray by the fascination of magical powers. His teacher Hu-tzŭ is not interested in fortune-telling, since he can withdraw beyond life and death to that serenity (with ‘a heart like dead ash’ and ‘a frame like withered wood’, cf. p. 48, which is outwardly indistinguishable from death. As elsewhere in the Inner chapters the only technique assumed is the control of the ch’i (the breath and other energies of the body) by breathing which is very deep, ‘from the heels’ (cf. also p. 84 above), and so even that the adept seems not to be breathing at all. For the uninitiated who cling to life, the merest glimpse of this state overwhelms with the horror of self-dissolution in ultimate solitude.
Don’t be a medium possessed by your name,
Don’t be a stockroom for schemes.
Don’t take the weight of affairs on your shoulders,
Don’t be the man-in-charge of wisdom.
Become wholly identified with the limitless and roam where there is no foreboding of anything. Exhaust all that you draw from Heaven and never have gain in sight; simply keep yourself tenuous. The utmost man uses the heart like a mirror; he does not escort things as they go or welcome them as they come, he responds and does not store. Therefore he is able to conquer other things without suffering a wound.
The Emperor of the South Sea was Fast, the Emperor of the North Sea was Furious, the Emperor of the centre was Hun-t’un. Fast and Furious met from time to time in the land of Hun-t’un, who treated them very generously. Fast and Furious were discussing how to repay Hun-t’un’s bounty.
‘All men have seven holes through which they look, listen, eat, breathe; he alone doesn’t have any. Let’s try boring them.’
Every day they bored one hole, and on the seventh day Hun-t’un died.
NOTE Hun-t’un is the primal blob which first divided into heaven and earth and then differentiated as the myriad things. In Chinese cosmology the primordial is not a chaos reduced to order by imposed law, it is a blend of everything rolled up together; the word is a reduplicative of the type of English ‘hotchpotch’ and ‘rolypoly’, and diners in Chinese restaurants will have met it in the form ‘wuntun’ as a kind of dumpling.