“ORIGINATING IN the Way” (Yuan dao 
), the first of the eight foundational or “root” chapters of the text, is significant because it provides the cosmological basis for the entire Huainanzi collection. It opens with a beautiful poetic rhapsody on the cosmology of the Way (dao 
) and its Potency (de 
) in the tradition of the Laozi 
, certainly one of the canonical sources for this particular essay and for the book as a whole. In it we see a detailed examination of how these cosmic foundations are manifested in the world and an in-depth description of how sages are able to use their unique penetrating vision of these foundations, attained through self-cultivation, to bring peace and harmony to the realm. Coming at the beginning of the entire twenty-one-chapter book and presented to the court at a time when its compiler, Liu An 
, was trying to dissuade his nephew, Emperor Wu 
, against the arguments of his Confucian (ru 
) advisers, this chapter serves a number of purposes.
First, even though the chapter never directly affirms a particular intellectual affiliation, its cosmological, psychological, and political philosophy shows its indebtedness to the Laozi and some other important early Daoist sources on the relationship of cosmology and self-cultivation to rulership.1 Only such an ideal of rulership comprehends the inner workings of the cosmos and applies that wisdom to governing in harmony with them. Second, as the opening chapter of the collection, “Originating in the Way” sets out general themes that will be pursued in more detail in much of the remainder of the work, such as cosmology, human psychology and self-cultivation, and political philosophy. Its importance to understanding the entire book and seeing it in a clearer light cannot be overemphasized.
The Chapter Title
We have translated the title of this chapter, “Yuan dao” 
, as “Originating in the Way.” The word yuan is a noun meaning “origin” or “source.” The Han commentator Gao You takes it to mean “foundation.” Yuan can also be used adjectivally and occasionally verbally, as in Roger T. Ames and D. C. Lau’s translation of this chapter, “Tracing Dao to Its Source.”2 Dao means “the Way,” the primary creative and destructive force in the cosmos that is simultaneously immanent in everything yet paradoxically transcendent of any one of them. It serves as a kind of invisible guide for the spontaneous self-generating activities of all phenomena. Because it is immanent, the Way can be directly apprehended or grasped by human beings through an apophatic meditative practice that I call “inner cultivation.”3 Our translation of the title, “Originating in the Way,” reflects the verbal use of yuan and highlights its authors’ demonstration that the cosmos, human consciousness, methods of inner cultivation, human history, and even the contents of the rest of the book “originate in the Way.” While we might expect the preposition yu 
(in) to appear between yuan and dao (
) in the title, it seems to have been left out in order to conform to the two-character title format for all the chapters, but it can be inferred. Furthermore, as a translation, “Originating in the Way” is meant to preserve the parallelism with the title of chapter 2, “Activating the Genuine.” This parallelism, however, creates semantic problems in English, because constructing the title as a verb–object phrase is philosophically unsound from the perspective of the text (the dao cannot really be an object). If we were to cleave very closely to the grammar of the title, we could render it as “The Originating Way,” but this does not make for good style or sense in English. “Originating in the Way,” however, conveys the same sense and is stylistically better suited to English syntax and usage.
Summary and Key Themes
For the authors of the Huainanzi, because everything in Heaven and on Earth is both natural and supernatural, secular and sacred, the natures and patterns that constitute them attain a normative prominence often unfamiliar to us in the West. That is, these patterns, sequences, propensities, and natures are themselves divine. They are the basis through which all the multitudinous phenomena in the world adhere and function in harmony and, as such, serve as the models and standards for the communities of human beings who are an integral part of this order. Thus Nature is holy in and of itself—to be respected, adhered to, and even worshiped. According to the authors of this chapter, human beings can either ignore this normative natural order and fail in their endeavors, or they can follow it and succeed.
The sage-kings referred to in section 1.4, Feng Yi 
and Da Bing 
, are portrayed as having been the first to recognize this and to rule the cosmos by following the natural tendencies of phenomena and the patterns of their activities. Human beings cannot succeed by opposing these fundamental principles of the natural world. In order to govern effectively, the ruler must model himself on these sage-kings and develop the wisdom to discern these principles and then not interfere with how the myriad things follow them. Unfortunately, human beings tend to fall away from this normative natural order and lose their spontaneous functioning. The senses’ desire for sense objects generates preferences and enticements, and people become so obsessed with them that they lose touch with their innate nature and natural spontaneity. Humans must learn to get back in touch with their natural and spontaneous side, for it is that part of them that is directly connected to the normative patterns through which the Way subtly guides the spontaneous self-generation of all things. Inner cultivation is the primary way in which human beings can realize the deepest aspects of their intrinsic nature, that part of their being that is directly in touch with the Way and, through it, with the inherent patterns and structures of the universe.
The universe is thus described as a “spiritlike vessel” (shen qi 
), made up of the various innate natures (xing 
) of things that determine their course of development and their actions and of the great patterns (li 
) inherent in the cosmos that govern the characteristic ways in which things interact with one another. These natures and patterns are thoroughly infused with the empty Way, which mysteriously guides their spontaneous processes of development and their daily activities. This entire complex world functions completely spontaneously and harmoniously and needs nothing additional from human beings. All sages need to do is recognize these natures and patterns and adapt to them. It is because of this normative order that sages can accomplish everything without exerting their individual will to control things. In other words, they practice “non-action” (wuwei 
), which is effective because of the existence of this normative natural order. Sages cultivate themselves through the “Techniques of the Mind” (xin shu 
) in order to fully realize the basis of this order within.4 By realizing the Way at the basis of their innate nature, sages can simultaneously realize the intrinsic natures of all phenomena.
These interlocking ideas of order and structure in the universe as the foundation for non-action and sagely government are well summarized in section 1.9:
Sages internally cultivate the root [of the Way within them]
and do not externally adorn themselves with its branches.
They protect their Quintessential Spirit and
dispense with wisdom and precedent.
In stillness they take no deliberate action, yet there is nothing left undone.
In tranquillity they do not try to govern, but nothing is left ungoverned.
What we call “no deliberate action” is to not anticipate the activity of things.
What we call “nothing left undone” means to adapt to what things have [already] done.
What we call “to not govern” means to not change how things are naturally so.
What we call “nothing left ungoverned” means to adapt to how things are mutually so.
Thus, as section 1.5 states:
The affairs of the world cannot be deliberately controlled.
You must draw them out by following their natural direction.
The alterations of the myriad things cannot be fathomed.
You must grasp their essential tendencies and guide them to their homes.
The inner cultivation through which sages are able to realize the Way and practice non-action entails the systematic elimination of the emotions, distractions, desires, preferences, thoughts, deliberations, and attachments to the sense-objects that usually flood the conscious mind. Through this, one may break through to the level of “spiritlike illumination” (shenming 
) and realize what lies deep within the innermost core of one’s being, the one Way. Realizing this yields a profound and lasting contentment much greater than the fleeting pleasures of the senses. It also is conceived of as preserving the inherent balance among the functioning of the four basic aspects of human beings: physical body (xing 
), vital energy or breath (qi 
), spirit (shen 
), and will or attention (zhi 
), which are part of the normative natural order that exists in human beings. Cluttering consciousness with lusts and desires disrupts this balance. The antidote for this is inner cultivation practice, which cleanses the mind and thus gradually restores the inherent balance among these activities. Thus by practicing inner cultivation that calms mind and body and yields a deep state of tranquillity, sages enable the four basic aspects of their beings to function spontaneously and harmoniously in accordance with their inherent natural patterns. This then allows them to align with the “heavenly dynamism” (tianji 
), the normative natural order of which they are an integral part and thus act completely in accordance with the Way.
Another benefit of realizing the Way within is that those who do so can avoid the disasters associated with acting before the correct moment in time. When they detect that moment, they act spontaneously in response to it and are said to follow it and not anticipate it. This chapter contains an intricate matrix of interacting temporal sequences and natural patterns that guide the spontaneous responses arising from the natures of all phenomena. All these elements constitute the normative natural order, and failure to act in accordance with it will result in personal failure and, at times, natural disasters.
The authors of “Originating in the Way” also use the metaphor of water to express the most important aspects of this normative order. Water moves and acts as the Way does. It is both something from which we can learn about how the Way works in the world and a normative model for how the sages act. When they encounter difficulties, sages do not meet them with force but rather with a mental attitude based on the model of the persistent weakness of water. This is a quality of mind to be cultivated and is related to the notions of suppleness, pliancy, non-striving, and non-assertiveness. It is through this normative model of water that we can, as the Laozi says, understand the benefits of acting without asserting the human will over and against the patterns of nature (tianli 
). The benefits of water are extolled in section 1.12:
Therefore,
without being partial or impartial, gushing and undulating, it totally merges with Heaven and Earth.
Without favoring the left or the right, coiling and swirling, it ends and begins with the myriad things.
This is what we call “Perfect Potency.”
The reason that water is able to achieve its Perfect Potency within the entire world is that it is gentle and soaking, moist and slippery. Thus, in the words of Lao Dan:
The most pliant things in the world
ride roughshod over the most rigid.
[This is because] they emerge from the Nonexistent
and enter into the Seamless.
I thereby understand the benefits of taking no action.
Sources
The principal source for this chapter is the Laozi. It is the inspiration for the chapter’s poetic rhapsodies on the Way and its vision of applying inner cultivation to governing. This chapter also shares its thought with the similarly entitled “Dao yuan” 
(The Source That Is the Way) essay that is part of the Mawangdui Huang-Lao silk manuscripts.5 In its presentation of self-cultivation, “Originating in the Way” shares much of its language with the four works on “Techniques of the Mind” assembled in the Guanzi.6 Its discussion of water as a metaphor for the Way comes from the Laozi and also perhaps from the Taiyi sheng shui (The Grand One Generates Water) text excavated at Guodian.7
The Chapter in the Context of the Huainanzi as a Whole
Coming at the beginning of the entire work, “Originating in the Way” establishes important elements of the philosophical framework in which the rest of the text functions. “An Overview of the Essentials,” the concluding chapter of the Huainanzi, attributes to this chapter the ability to
[begin with] the six coordinates contracted and
compressed and the myriad things chaotic and confused.
[It then] diagrams the features of the Grand One
and fathoms the depths of the Dark Unseen,
thereby soaring beyond the frame of Empty Nothingness.
By relying on the small, it embraces the great;
by guarding the contracted, it orders the expansive.
It enables you to understand
the bad or good fortune of taking the lead or following behind
and the benefit or harm of taking action or remaining still
If you sincerely comprehend its import, floodlike, you can achieve a grand vision. (21.2)
It thus ascribes to this first chapter an all-inclusive wisdom that provides the foundation for the rest of the book. In some important ways, “Originating in the Way” also is a parallel work to the second chapter, “Activating the Genuine,” for which the Zhuangzi is the major influence.
The major themes in this chapter that occur in various combinations and contexts throughout the rest of the book are as follows: (1) the cosmology of the Way and its Potency; (2) the general framework for how the Way works in the world through the innate natures and propensities of things and through the natural patterns that form the structures through which things interact, thus forming a harmonious world order; (3) the basic theory that because of this order and structure, sages can act efficaciously in the world through non-action, a state of mind, and its derivative laissez-faire principle that leaving things alone allows them to spontaneously and harmoniously develop and interact; and (4) the theory that this state of mind can be developed through apophatic inner-cultivation practices.
Harold D. Roth
1. For details on these texts and their relationships, see Harold D. Roth, “Psychology and Self-Cultivation in Early Taoistic Thought,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51, no. 2 (1991): 599–650; “Who Compiled the Chuang Tzu?” in Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts: Essays Dedicated to Angus C. Graham, ed. Henry Rosemont Jr. (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court Press, 1991), 78–128; and “Redaction Criticism and the Early History of Taoism,” Early China 19 (1994): 1–46.
2. Roger T. Ames and D. C. Lau, Yuan Dao: Tracing Dao to Its Source (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998). Ames 1994, 14, earlier translated this title as “Tracing the Dao.” Csikszentmihalyi 2004, 45, 102n.2, renders it variously as “Finding the Source of the Way” and “Origin of the Tao.” For other versions of the chapter title, see the translations listed in app. C.
3. “Apophatic” refers to methods of self-transformative practice that involve the “forgetting” or negation of common dualistic categories of knowledge and experience. “Inner cultivation” is the term I use to refer to the apophatic practices of emptying the mind in order to realize the Way that are found in all early Daoist works. For details, see Harold D. Roth, “The Inner Cultivation Tradition of Early Daoism,” in The Religions of China in Practice, ed. Donald Lopez and Stephen Teiser (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), 123–48; “Evidence for Stages of Meditation in Early Taoism,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 60, no. 2 (1997): 295–314; and Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 7–9 and passim.
4. The “Techniques of the Mind” is the title of two short texts in the seventy-six-text Guanzi compendium. Together with “Inward Training” and “The Purified Mind,” they constitute a group that in modern scholarship is referred to as the four “Techniques of Mind” works. By the time of the Huainanzi, this phrase was probably used as a general term for what I have called “inner cultivation” practice. For details, see Roth, Original Tao, 15–30.
5. For a translation, see Harold D. Roth and Sarah A. Queen, “Syncretic Visions of State, Society, and Cosmos,” in Sources of Chinese Tradition, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 252–56. For a translation and analysis of this text and the other silk manuscripts, see Robin D. S. Yates, Five Lost Classics: Tao, Huang-lao, and Yin-yang in Han China (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 171–77.
6. For details of these works and their ideas on self-cultivation, see Roth, “Redaction Criticism and the Early History of Taoism.”
7. For the text and a preliminary discussion of this short but important work, see “Other Texts and the Question of Philosophical Schools,” 162–71, and Edmund Ryden, “Edition of the Bamboo-Slip Laozi A, B, and C, and Tai yi sheng shui from Guodian Tomb Number One,” 228–31, both in The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the International Conference, ed. Sarah Allan and Crispin Williams, Early China Special Monograph Series, no. 5 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); and Sarah Allan, “The Great One, Water, and the Laozi: New Light from Guodian,” T’oung Pao 89, nos. 4–5 (2003): 237–85.
As for the Way:
It covers Heaven and upholds Earth.
It extends the four directions
and divides the eight end points.
So high, it cannot be reached.
So deep, it cannot be fathomed.
It embraces and enfolds Heaven and Earth
It endows and bestows the Formless.
Flowing along like a wellspring, bubbling up like a font,
it is empty but gradually becomes full.
Roiling and boiling,
it is murky but gradually becomes clear.
Therefore,
pile it up vertically: it fills all within Heaven and Earth.
Stretch it out horizontally: it encompasses all within the Four Seas.
Unwind it limitlessly: it is without distinction between dawn and dusk.
Roll it out: it expands to the six coordinates.1
Roll it up: it does not make a handful.
It is constrained but able to extend.
It is dark but able to brighten.
It is supple but able to strengthen.
It is pliant but able to become firm.
It stretches out the four binding cords2 and restrains yin and yang.
It suspends the cosmic rafters and displays the Three Luminaries.
Intensely saturating and soaking,
Intensely subtle and minute.
Mountains are high because of it.
Abysses are deep because of it.
Beasts can run because of it.
Birds can fly because of it.
The sun and moon are bright because of it.
The stars and timekeepers move because of it.
Qilins wander freely because of it. Phoenixes soar because of it. [1/1/3–8]
The two August Lords of high antiquity3
grasped the handles of the Way
and so were established in the center.
Their spirits mysteriously roamed together with all transformations
and thereby pacified the four directions.
Hence, they could revolve like the heavens and stand still like the earth,
cycle round and round without stopping,
flowing unceasingly like water,
they ended and began together with all things.
As winds arose and clouds formed,
there was no event to which they did not respond.
As thunder rumbled and rain descended,
to all they responded without end.
Ghosts departed and spirits entered.
Dragons arose and phoenixes alighted.
Like the potter’s wheel turning, like the wheel hub spinning,
they circled round and round.
Both carved and polished,
they returned to the Unhewn.4
They acted non-actively and were united with the Way.5
They spoke non-actively and were suffused by its Potency.6
They were peaceful and without cares and attained harmony.
Although there were a myriad of different things in the world, they accorded with their various natures. Their spirits could concentrate [on something as small as] the tip of an autumn hair7 and something as vast as the totality of space and time.8
Their Potency:
accorded with Heaven and the Earth and harmonized yin and yang;
delimited the four seasons and attuned the Five Phases.9
[Because] it affectionately supported and nurtured them,
the myriad things nourished their vitality.
It could seep into grasses and trees
and soak into metal and rock.10
Among the multitude of kinds of wild beasts
the hairs of their coats were sleek and moist.
Their feathers and wings fluttered;
their horns and antlers grew.
The embryos of beasts were not stillborn.
The eggs of birds were not infertile.
Fathers were spared the grief of mourning their sons.
Elder brothers were spared the sadness of mourning their younger brothers.
Children did not become orphans.
Wives did not become widows.
Double rainbows did not appear.
Baleful stars did not occur.11
This is all the result of the Potency with which they were imbued. [1/1/10–17]
The most exalted Way
generates the myriad things but does not possess them,
completes the transforming images12 but does not dominate them.
Creatures that walk on hooves and breathe through beaks, that fly through the air and wriggle on the ground,
depend on it for life, yet none understands its Potency;
depend on it for death, yet none is able to resent it.
Those who attain it and profit are unable to praise it;
those who use it and lose are unable to blame it.
It gathers and collects yet is not any richer for it.
It bestows and confers yet it not diminished by it.
It cycles endlessly yet cannot be fathomed.
It is delicate and minute yet cannot be exhausted.
Pile it up, but it will not get higher;
Collapse it, but it will not get lower.
Add to it, but it will not increase.
Take away from it, but it will not decrease.
Split it, but it will not get thinner.
Kill it, but it will not be destroyed.
Bore into it, but it will not deepen.
Fill it in, but it will not get shallower.
Hazy! Nebulous! You cannot imagine it.
Nebulous! Hazy! Your use will not exhaust it.
Dark! Obscure! It responds formlessly.
Deep! Penetrating! It does not act in vain.
It rolls and unrolls with the firm and the pliant.
It bends and straightens with the yin and the yang. [1/1/19–24]
In ancient times when Feng Yi and Da Bing rode chariots, they rose up in thunder carts and entered the cloudy rainbow. They roamed in the ethereal mists and galloped in the hazy and nebulous. Going farther and farther and higher and higher, they reached the pinnacle. They traversed the frost and snow but left no tracks. Illuminated by the light of the sun, they cast no shadows. Spiraling around, they ascended the whirlwind. Traversing mountains and rivers, they strode over Mount Kunlun. Pushing through the Chang He [gate] they surged through the gateway of Heaven.13
If we compare this with the charioteering in recent times, although there are lightweight carts and good horses, strong whips and sharp prods, they cannot compete with or overtake them.14
Therefore, the Great Man
calmly has no worries
and placidly has no anxieties
He takes
Heaven as his canopy;
Earth as his carriage;
the four seasons as his steeds,
and yin and yang as his charioteers.
He rides the clouds and soars through the sky to become a companion of the power that fashions and transforms us. Letting his imagination soar and relaxing his grip, he gallops through the vast vault [of the heavens].
When appropriate, he canters [his steeds].
When appropriate, he gallops them.
He orders the master of rain to moisten the byways
And directs the master of wind to sweep away the dust.
He takes lightning as his lash
and thunder as his chariot wheels.
Above, he roams freely in the misty and murky realms.
Below, he emerges from the gateway of the boundless.
Having observed all around and illuminated everything
He returns to guarding [the One] in order to remain whole.
He superintends the four corners [of Earth]
Yet always turns back to the central axis.
Thus,
with Heaven as your canopy, nothing will be uncovered.
With Earth as your carriage, nothing will be unsupported
With the four seasons as your steeds, nothing will be unemployed.
With yin and yang as your charioteers, nothing will be incomplete.
Therefore, why is it that
he hastens forth but does not wobble;
goes far but does not weary;
his four limbs do not weaken;
his perceptual acuity does not diminish;
and he comprehends the shapes and outlines of the eight outlying regions and the nine fields of the heavens? It is because he grasps the handles of the Way and roams in the land of the inexhaustible. [1/1/26–1/2/11]
Therefore,
the affairs of the world cannot be deliberately controlled.
You must draw them out by following their natural direction.
The alterations of the myriad things cannot be fathomed.
You must grasp their essential tendencies and guide them to their homes.
When a water mirror comes in contact with shapes, it is not because of wisdom and precedent that it is able to flawlessly reflect the square, round, crooked, and straight.15 Therefore, the echo does not respond at random, and the shadow does not independently arise. They mimic sounds and forms and tacitly grasp them.
That which is tranquil from our birth is our heavenly nature. Stirring only after being stimulated, our nature is harmed. When things arise and the spirit responds, this is the activity of perception. When perception comes into contact with things, preferences arise. When preferences take shape and perception is enticed by external things, our nature cannot return to the self, and the heavenly patterns are destroyed.16
Thus those who break through to the Way do not use the human to change the heavenly. Externally they transform together with things, but internally they do not lose their genuine responses.
They attain Nothing, but their needs are provided for.
They are always on the move but find a place to lodge for the night.
Small and great, tall or short, each has its proper role. The myriads spring forth and leap and prance in profusion, yet they do not lose track of their norms.17
So when they rest above, the people do not find them heavy.
When they are located in front, the multitudes do not injure them.
All the world returns to them
The wicked and perverse fear them.
It is because they do not compete with the myriad things that none is able to compete with them. [1/2/11–19]
Now if someone spends an entire day pole-fishing along a riverbank he will not be able to fill up even a hand basket. Even though he may have hooked barbs and sharp spears, fine line and fragrant bait, and, in addition, the skills of Zhan He or Juan Xuan,18 he would still be unable to compete with the catch hauled in by a trawling net. Or suppose a bowman were to stretch out the famous Wuhao bow and fit it with the fine arrows from Qi and add to this the craft of Yi or Feng Mengzi.19 If he wanted to hunt birds in flight, he would still be unable to match the amount caught by a gauze net. Why is this? It is because what he is holding is small [by comparison].
If you stretch out the world and make it your basket
and follow the courses of rivers and oceans and make them your trawling net,
How could you lose any fish or miss any birds?
Thus the arrow cannot match the spear; the spear cannot match the trawling net; but the trawling net cannot match the Formless Image.20 [1/2/21–25] Now if you let go of the great Way and rely on inferior methods,21 this is no different from using a crab to catch a rat or a frog to catch a flea: it is insufficient to prevent wickedness and block depravity. It will only cause disorder to increase.
In ancient times, Gun22 of Xia made a city wall twenty-four feet high,23 but the Lords of the Land turned against him and those who dwelled beyond the seas had deceitful hearts. [His son] Yu24 understood that the world had become rebellious and thereupon knocked down the wall, filled in the moat surrounding the city, gave away their resources, burned their armor and weapons, and treated everyone with beneficence. And so the lands beyond the Four Seas respectfully submitted, and the four Yi tribes brought tribute. When he assembled the Lords of the Land on Mount Du, there were people from myriad principalities who brought in gifts of jade and silk. Thus when a deceitful heart is hidden in your chest, your inner purity will not glisten and your spiritlike Potency will not be whole. When what lies within your own person is not known to you, how can people from afar cherish you? Therefore when the armor is hard, the weapons are sharper; when city walls are built, battering rams are made. It is like using boiling water to reduce the boil: the disorder will simply increase. Therefore if you lash a snapping dog or whip a kicking horse in order to teach them, although you be as gifted as Yi Yin25 or Zaofu,26 you will not be able to transform them in this way. But if the heart that wishes to harm others disappears from within you, then you can pull the tail of a hungry tiger; how much more can you tame such things as dogs and horses?
Therefore those who embody the Way are relaxed and never exhausted.
Those who rely on [inferior] methods work hard but achieve little. [1/3/1–7]
Resorting to harsh laws and arbitrary punishments is not the practice of hegemons and kings.
Repeatedly using sharp whips is not the method of those who travel far.
Li Zhu’s27 vision was so acute that he could pick out the tip of a needle beyond a hundred paces, but he could not see the fish in the deep.
Music Master Kuang’s28 hearing was so accurate that he could harmonize the tones of the eight winds, yet he could not hear anything beyond ten li.
Thus relying on the talents of one person is insufficient to govern a holding of three mou. But if you comply with the norms of the Way29 and follow the naturalness of Heaven and Earth, then none within the six coordinates will be able to be your equal.
Therefore, when Yu drained the flood,
he followed the water as his master.
When the Divine Farmer30 sowed grain,
he followed the seedlings as his teacher. [1/3/9–13]
Plants like duckweed take root in water.
Plants like trees take root on land.
Birds beat their wings in the air in order to fly.
Wild beasts stomp on solid ground in order to run.
Serpents and dragons live in the water.
Tigers and leopards live in the mountains.
This is the nature of Heaven and Earth.31
When two pieces of wood are rubbed together, they make fire.
When metal and fire are pushed together, the metal becomes molten.
Round things always spin.
Hollow things excel at floating.
This is their natural propensity.
Therefore, when spring winds arrive, then sweet rains will fall; they vitalize and nurture the myriad things.
Those with wings sit on their nests and hatch eggs.
Those with hair gestate and give birth to their young.
Grasses and trees become lush and flowering.
Birds and wild beasts have eggs and embryos.
No one sees what effects these things, but these achievements are completed.
The autumn winds cause frost to descend,
and the living things [that are reached by the frost] are snapped and injured.
Eagles and falcons hawkishly seize [their prey];
swarming insects hibernate;
grasses and trees die back to their roots;
fish and tortoises plunge together into the deep.
No one sees what effects these things; they just disappear into the Formless.
Tree dwellers nest in the woods;
water dwellers live in caves.
Wild beasts have beds of straw;
human beings have houses.
Hilly places are suitable for oxen and horses.
For travel by boat, it is good to have a lot of water.
The Xiongnu produce rancid animal-skin garments,
The Gan and Yue [peoples] make thin clothes of pueraria fabric.32
Each produces what it urgently needs
in order to adapt to the aridity or dampness.
Each accords with where it lives
in order to protect against the cold and the heat.
All things attain what is suitable to them;
things accord with their niches.
From this viewpoint, the myriad things definitely accord with what is natural to them, so why should sages interfere with this? [1/3/15–22]
To the south of the Nine Passes, tasks on dry land are few, while tasks on water are many. So the people cut their hair and tattoo their bodies in order to resemble scaly creatures. They wear short pants, not long trousers, in order to make swimming easier. And they have short sleeves in order to make poling their boats easier. In doing this, they are adapting [to their natural environment].
To the north of the Yanmen Pass, the Di tribes do not eat grain. They devalue the aged and value the strong, and it is a custom to esteem those with strength of vital energy. People there do not unstring their bows, nor do they remove the bridles from their horses. In doing this, they are adjusting [to their natural environment].
Thus when Yu went to the Country of the Naked, he removed his clothes when he entered and put them back on when he left. In doing this he was adapting [to his natural environment]. Nowadays, if those who transplant trees neglect the yin and the yang aspects of their natures, then none will not wither and die. Thus if you plant a mandarin orange tree north of the Yangzi, it will transform into an inedible orange. A mynah bird cannot live beyond [i.e., to the north of] the Qi River, and if a badger33 crosses [to the south of] the Min River, it will die. Physical form and innate nature cannot be changed,34 and propensity and locale cannot be shifted.
Therefore,
those who break through to the Way return to clarity and tranquillity.
Those who look deeply into things end up not acting on them.
If you use calmness to nourish your nature,
and use quietude to transfix your spirit,
then you will enter the heavenly gateway. [1/3/24–1/4/3]
What we call “Heaven”
is pure and untainted,
unadorned and plain,
and has never begun to be tainted with impurities.
What we call “human”
is biased because of wisdom and precedent.
Devious and deceptive,
it is what looks back to past generations and interacts with the vulgar.
Thus,
that the ox treads on cloven hooves and grows horns
and that the horse has a mane and square hooves,
This is heavenly [i.e., natural].
Yet to put a bit in a horse’s mouth
and to put a ring through an ox’s nose,
This is human.
Those who comply with Heaven roam with the Way.
Those who follow the human interact with the mundane.
Now,
you cannot talk to a fish in a well about great things because it is confined by its narrow space.
You cannot talk to a summer bug about the cold because it is restricted to its season.
You cannot talk to petty scholars about the Utmost Way because they are confined by the mundane and bound up by their teaching.
Thus sages
do not allow the human to obscure the heavenly
and do not let desire corrupt their genuine responses.
They hit the mark without scheming;
they are sincere without speaking;
they attain without planning;
they complete without striving.
Their vital essence circulates into the Magical Storehouse, and they become human along with what fashions and transforms them. [1/4/5–10]
When an excellent swimmer sinks and an excellent rider falls, it is because, contrary to expectations, each has taken what he is fond of and used it to make misfortune for himself.
Therefore,
those who are fond of striving never miss falling into a trap,
and those who compete for gain are never not exhausted.
In ancient times, the strength of Gong Gong was such that he butted his head against Buzhou Mountain and caused the earth to tilt toward the southeast. He competed with Gao Xin35 in order to become the thearch. Subsequently he disappeared into an abyss; his entire clan was destroyed; and the ancestral sacrifices of his clan line were cut off. The king of Yue fled to a cave in the mountains, but the people of Yue smoked him out,36 and subsequently he had no choice [but to return with them].
When we look at things from this point of view,
attainment lies with the right moment and does not lie in competing with others.
Good order lies in the Way and does not lie in sages.
The soil lies beneath things and does not compete to be higher than them. Thus it is secure and in no danger.
Water flows downward and does not compete to take the lead. Thus it moves quickly without delay. [1/4/12–16]
In ancient times, Shun plowed on Mount Li. After a year the farmers competed to occupy the stony fields while they relinquished the fertile fields to one another. He fished on the riverbank. After a year the fishermen fought to occupy the rapids and shallows while they gave the remote coves and deep pools to one another. During this time his mouth did not speak, and his hands did not direct with banners. He held a mysterious potency in his mind, and he transformed things so rapidly it seemed spiritlike. If Shun had not had this awareness, although his mouth could argue so cogently that every household would be persuaded, he would not have been able to transform even a single person. Therefore the Way that cannot be spoken of is incredibly vast! Now he was able to regulate the San Miao and subjugate the Feathered People, to move to the Country of the Naked, and to receive tribute from the Sushan. It was not because he announced titles and proclaimed edicts that he was able to adjust their mores and change their customs; it was only because of his mental activity that he was able to do that. How could laws and measures, punishments and restrictions, enable him to achieve this?
Therefore,
sages internally cultivate the root [of the Way within them]
and do not externally adorn themselves with its branches.
They protect their Quintessential Spirit
and dispense with wisdom and precedent.
In stillness they take no deliberate action, yet there is nothing left undone.
In tranquillity they do not try to govern, but nothing is left ungoverned.
What we call “no deliberate action” is to not anticipate the activity of things.
What we call “nothing left undone” means to adapt to what things have [al ready] done.
What we call “to not govern” means to not change how things are naturally so.
What we call “nothing left ungoverned” means to adapt to how things are mutually so.
The myriad things all have a source from which they arise;
[the sages] alone understand how to guard this root.
The hundred endeavors all have a source from which they are produced;
[the sages] alone understand how to guard this gateway.
Thus exhausting the inexhaustible,
reaching the limit of the infinite,
illuminating things without bedazzling them,
and inexhaustibly responding to things like an echo [responds to sound]:
This is what we call “being released by Heaven.” [1/4/18–26]
Thus those who attain the Way:
Their wills are supple, but their deeds are strong.
Their minds are empty, but their responses are dead on.
What we mean by a supple will is
being pliant and soft, calm, and tranquil;
hiding when others do not dare to;
acting when others are unable to;
being calm and without worry;
acting without missing the right moment;
and cycling and revolving with the myriad things.
Never anticipating or initiating
but just responding to things when stimulated.
Therefore,
the honored invariably take their titles from the base,
and those of high station invariably take what is below as their foundation.
They rely on the small to embrace the great;
they rest in the inner to regulate the outer;
they act pliantly to become firm;
they utilize weakness to become strong;
they cycle through transformations and push where things are shifting;
they attain the Way of the One and use the few to correct the many.
What we mean by strength of deeds is
responding with alacrity when encountering alterations;
pushing away disasters and warding off difficulties;
being so strong that there is nothing unvanquished;
facing enemies, there are none that are not humiliated;
responding to transformations by gauging the proper moment
and being harmed by nothing.
Therefore,
if you wish to be firm, you must guard it by being pliant.
If you wish to be strong, you must protect it by being supple.
When you accumulate pliability, you become firm.
When you accumulate suppleness, you become strong.
Keep a close watch on what you are accumulating
in order to know the tendencies toward fortune or misfortune.
Strength defeats what is not its equal. When it encounters its equal, it is neutralized.
Pliability defeats what exceeds itself. Its power cannot be measured.
Thus when an army is strong, it will be destroyed.
When a tree is strong, it will be broken.
When leather armor is hard, it will split open.
Because teeth are harder than the tongue, they wear out first.
Therefore, the pliant and weak are the supports of life,
and the hard and strong are the disciples of death.37 [1/4/28–1/5/7]
To anticipate [the right moment] and initiate is the road to ruin;
to follow is the source of success.38
How do I know this is so? For most people, through a life span of about seventy years until they reach their death; they pursue things and then reject them; they divide them up and then reassemble them; and daily they regret what they are doing. Thus Qu Boyu39 at age fifty had criticized himself for forty-nine of them. Why?
Because those who anticipate have a hard time acting with wisdom,
but those who follow have an easy time acting efficaciously.
When those who anticipate climb up high,
those who follow will pull them down.
When those who anticipate climb down,
those who follow will jump over them.
When those who anticipate fall into a pit,
those who follow will take counsel from this.
When those who anticipate accumulate defeats,
those who follow will avoid them.
Looking at it from this perspective, those who anticipate are the target that draws the bows and arrows away from those who follow. It is as the hilt is to the blade of the sword: the blade suffers the stress while the hilt remains unharmed. Why? Because it places itself in the position of following and has a protected spot.40 This is something widely seen in the vulgar world and among ordinary people, and the worthy and wise cannot avoid it.
What we call “following” does not mean being stagnant and not developing or being congealed and not flowing. It is, rather, to value being able to revolve according to the norms and unite with the right moment.
Now those who grasp the Patterns of the Way and become companions of alterations, their anticipation governs what follows and their following after governs what they anticipated. What is the reason for this? They do not lose what they use to govern others [i.e., the Patterns of the Way], and so others cannot govern them. [1/5/7–17]
Time turns over and over.
There is not a moment’s rest.
To anticipate is to overshoot the mark;
to follow is to not fall short.
The days turn round and the months revolve:
Time does not play with mankind.
Thus sages do not value a foot of jade as much as they esteem an inch’s movement of the sundial’s shadow. Time is difficult to gain but easy to lose.
When Yu was chasing the right moment,
if he lost his sandal, he would not stop to pick it up.
If he snagged his cap on a branch, he would not even glance back at it.
It was not that he was striving to anticipate the right moment; he was striving to attain it.
Therefore, sages guard the Pure Way and embrace the limits of the feminine principle. They adapt to things and comply with them; they respond to alterations spontaneously; they constantly follow and do not anticipate.
They are pliant and supple and thereby become tranquil,
They are relaxed and calm, and therefore their minds are stable.
They defeat the great and grind down the hard, and none is able to compete with them. [1/5/19–22]
Of all things under Heaven, none is more pliant and supple than water.
Nonetheless, it is
so great that its limits cannot be reached;
so deep that it cannot be fathomed;
so high that it reaches the infinite;
so distant it merges into the boundless.
Increasing and decreasing, draining away and filling up,
it circulates without restraints into the immeasurable.
When it ascends into the heavens, it becomes the rain and the dew.
When it descends to the earth, it becomes moisture and dampness.
If the myriad things do not gain it, they will not be born.
If the various endeavors do not gain it, they will not succeed.
It completely embraces the various things without partiality or favoritism.
It seeps through to the tiniest of creatures without seeking their gratitude.
Its richness sustains the entire world without being depleted.
Its Potency extends to the hundred clans without being expended.
It circulates [everywhere], yet we cannot exhaust it.
It is so subtle that we cannot seize it in our hands.
Strike it, and it is not wounded.
Pierce it, and it is not injured.
Chop it, and it is not cut apart.
Try to set it alight, and it will not burn.
Seeping, draining, flowing, disappearing,
Mixing and blending, intertwining with [things], it cannot be differentiated.
It is so sharp it can pierce a hole in metal and stone.
It is so strong it can give sustenance to the entire world.
It dissolves into the realm of the Formless,
And soars beyond the region of the Nebulous.
It meanders its way through the rivers and valleys,
and surges out into the vast wildernesses.
Depending on whether it is abundant or deficient,
it takes from or gives to Heaven and Earth.
It gives to the myriad things equally without preferences.
Therefore,
without being partial or impartial, gushing and undulating, it totally merges with Heaven and Earth.
Without favoring the left or the right, coiling and swirling, it ends and begins with the myriad things.
This is what we call “Perfect Potency.” [1/5/24–1/6/7]
The reason that water is able to achieve its Perfect Potency within the entire world is that it is gentle and soaking, moist and slippery. Thus, in the words of Lao Dan:
The most pliant things in the world
ride roughshod over the most rigid.
[This is because] they emerge from the Nonexistent
and enter into the Seamless.
I thereby understand the benefits of taking no action.41 [1/6/9–10]
Now the Formless is the Great Ancestor of things,
and the Toneless is the Great Ancestor of sound.
Their son is light;
their grandson is water;
And both are generated by the Formless.
Light can be seen but cannot be held;
water can be held but cannot be destroyed.
Thus of all things that have shapes, none is more honored than water.
Emerging into life, entering into death;
from Nothing treading into Something;
from Something treading into Nothing,
we thereby decline into lowliness. [1/6/10–13]
Therefore,
clarity and tranquillity are the perfections of Potency;
pliancy and suppleness are the essentials of the Way.
Empty Nonexistence and calm serenity are the ancestors of the myriad things.42
To quickly respond when stimulated,
to boldly43 return to the Root,
is to be merged with the Formless.
What we call “the Formless” is a designation for the One. What we call “the One” is that which has no counterpart in the entire world.
Majestically independent,
immensely solitary;
above, it permeates the Nine Heavens;
below, it threads through the Nine Regions.
Though round, it does not fit within the compass;
though square, it does not fit within the carpenter’s square.
Multifarious, yet constituting a unity;
proliferating, yet without a root.
It envelops Heaven and Earth like a sack;
it closes the gates to the Way.
Mysterious and vague, hidden and dark,
its whole Potency is preserved in its solitude.
Spread it out: it never ceases;
utilize it: it is never exhausted.
Therefore,
though you look for it, you will never see its form;
though you listen for it, you will never hear its sound;
though you hold it, you will never feel its contours.
It is a formlessness from which forms are generated;
It is a soundlessness from which the five tones call out.
It is a tastelessness from which the five flavors take shape.
It is a colorlessness from which the five colors develop.
Therefore,
the Existent arises from the Nonexistent;
the Real emerges from the Empty.
Because the entire world is encircled by it,
names and realities converge.
The number of the tones does not exceed five, yet their variations cannot be fully heard.
The harmony of the flavors does not exceed five, yet their transformations cannot be fully savored.
The number of the colors does not exceed five, yet their variations cannot be fully seen.
Thus,
as for tone: when the gong note is established, the five tones all take shape;
as for flavor: when sweetness is established, the five flavors all become fixed;
as for color: when white is established, the five colors all develop;
as for the Way: when the One is established, then the myriad things all are born. [1/6/15–23]
Therefore,
the guiding principle of the One
spreads throughout the Four Seas.
The diffusion of the One
extends throughout Heaven and Earth.
In its wholeness, it is pure like uncarved wood.
In its dispersal, it is jumbled like murky water.
Although it is murky, it gradually becomes clear;
although it is empty, it gradually becomes full.
Still! It resembles a deep pool.
Buoyant! It resembles floating clouds.44
It seems to be nonexistent yet it exists;
it seems to be absent yet it is present.
The myriad things in their totality
all pass through this one portal.
The roots of the hundred endeavors
all emerge from this one gateway.
Its movements are formless;
its alterations and transformations are spiritlike [i.e., unfathomable];
its actions are traceless;
it constantly anticipates by following after. [1/6/25–27]
Therefore, in the governing of the Perfected,
they conceal their mental acuity;
they extinguish their literary brilliance.
Relying on the Way, they set aside wisdom and, toward the people, act impartially.
They limit their possessions
and reduce their needs.45
They cast off their ambitions,
discard lusts and desires,
and abandon worries and anxieties.
Limiting their possessions, they see things clearly;
reducing their needs, they attain them.
Now those who rely on their ears and eyes to hear and see, tire out their bodies, and are not clear. Those who use knowledge and deliberation to govern afflict their minds and achieve no success.
Therefore, sages make use of the one measure to comply with the tracks of things.
They do not alter its suitability;
they do not change its constancy.
Applying it as their level,46 relying on it as their marking cord,47 through the meanderings [of life], they follow it as their benchmark. [1/6/29–1/7/2]
Joy and anger are aberrations from the Way;
worry and grief are losses of Potency.
Likes and dislikes are excesses of the mind;
lusts and desires are hindrances to nature.
Violent anger ruins the yin;
extreme joy collapses the yang.
The suppression of vital energy brings on dumbness;
fear and terror bring on madness.
When you are worried, aggrieved, or enraged,
sickness will increasingly develop.
When likes and dislikes abundantly pile up,
misfortunes will successively follow.
Thus,
when the mind is not worried or happy, it achieves the perfection of Potency.
When the mind is inalterably expansive, it achieves the perfection of tranquillity.
When lusts and desires do not burden the mind, it achieves the perfection of emptiness.
When the mind is without likes and dislikes, it achieves the perfection of equanimity.
When the mind is not tangled up in things, it achieves the perfection of purity.
If the mind is able to achieve these five qualities, then it will break through to spirit-like illumination. To break through to spiritlike illumination is to realize what is intrinsic.
Therefore,
if you use the internal to govern the external,
then your various endeavors will not fail.
If you are able to realize internally,
then the external can be attended to.
If you realize it internally
then your Five Orbs48 will be in repose;
worries and anxieties will be at peace.
Your sinews will be powerful, and your muscles will be strong;
your ears and eyes will be acute and clear.
Though you are placid and calm, you do not waver.49
Though you are hard and strong, you do not break.
There is nothing you overshoot
and nothing you fall short of.
When you dwell in the small, you will not be cramped;
when you dwell in the great, you will be unrestrained.
Your soul will not be agitated;
your spirit will not be troubled.
Clear and limpid, still and calm,
you will become a hero50 to the entire world. [1/7/4–11]
The Great Way is vast and serene.
It is never far away from your own person.
If you seek it in what is close at hand,
you will go forth with it and return to it.51
When stimulated, you will be able to respond;
when pressed you will be able to move.
Mysteriously subtle and inexhaustible,
you alter without form or image.
When you fully roam [with the Way] in complete abandonment,
you will be like an echo to it or a shadow of it.
Climbing up high and gazing down on what is below,
you will never lose what you are hanging onto.
When treading through dangers and traversing defiles,
you will never forget your mysterious support.
If you are able to preserve it here, then your Potency will not diminish. The myriad things commingle in profusion, and you can revolve and transform together with them and thereby listen to the entire world. It is like galloping with the wind at your back. This is called “Perfect Potency.” If you attain Perfect Potency, then you will be truly content.
Among the people of olden times were those who lived in caves and grottoes but whose spirits did not depart from them [i.e., did not lose the centeredness derived from the spirit]. Among people of recent times are those who have the power of ten thousand chariots but who every day are worried and saddened.
If we look at things from this viewpoint,
sageliness is lost in governing people, yet it is found in attaining the Way.
Contentment is lost in wealth and station, but it is found in the harmony of Potency.
When you understand how to emphasize the self and deemphasize the [external] world, then you will be close to the Way. [1/7/13–18]
What is called “contentment”? Why must it consist of residing in the Lofty Terrace or the Elegant Floral Terrace; or roaming in the Lake of Cloudy Dreams or Sandy Hillock?52 The ear’s listening to the “nine shao [songs]” or the “six ying [pieces]”;53 or the mouth’s tasting finely prepared delicacies; or galloping on a level highway; or hunting the auspicious turquoise kingfisher—is this what is called contentment?54 What I call “contentment” refers to a person realizing his [deepest] realization [i.e., the Way]. Now those who realize their [deepest] realization:
Do not find contentment in extravagance
or grief in frugality.
They close together with the yin
and surge together with the yang.
Thus when [Confucius’s disciple] Zixia had conflict in his mind he grew thin, but when he attained the Way, he fattened up again. Sages do not allow their own persons to be enslaved by external things and do not allow desires to disrupt their [inner] harmony.
Therefore, when they are content, they do not delight in it;
when they are aggrieved, they are not distressed by it.
Through myriads of situations and hundreds of alterations, they flow freely and have nothing fixed:
“I alone remain detached;
I abandon external things,
and proceed together with the Way.”55
Therefore if you have the resources to realize it [the Way] yourself, then
beneath [the canopy of] lofty forests
and in [the bowels of] the deepest caves,
you will have what it takes to respond appropriately to your situation. But if you do not have the wherewithal to realize it yourself, then although you take the entire world as your own family and the myriad people as your servants and concubines, you will not have what it takes to nurture life.
If you are able to perfect the condition of being totally devoid of contentment, then there is nothing that will not make you content. If there is nothing that does not content you, then you will attain perfect contentment.56 [1/7/20–26]
Now setting up bells and drums, lining up wind and string instruments, spreading out felt mats and cushions, hanging up banners and ivory carvings, the ears listening to the licentious court music from the last Shang capital region,57 presenting beauties of an elegant complexion, setting up wine and passing around goblets all night into the next morning, powerful crossbows shooting at high-flying birds, running dogs chasing crafty hares: All these may bring you contentment, consume you with a blazing passion, and tempt you to lust after them. But when you unhitch the chariot, rest the horses, stop the wine, and halt the music,
your heart suddenly feels as if it is in mourning,
and you are as depressed as if you had a great loss.
What is the reason for this? [It is]
because you do not use what is intrinsic to bring contentment to what is extrinsic but, rather, use what is extrinsic to bring contentment to what is intrinsic. So when the music is playing, you are happy, but when the songs end, you are sad.
Sadness and happiness revolve and generate one another;
your Quintessential Spirit becomes chaotic and defensive
and cannot get a moment’s rest.
If you examine the reasons for this, you cannot grasp their shapes, yet every day because of this, you injure your vitality and neglect your [deepest] realizations.
Therefore, if you do not realize the intrinsic [nature] that lies within you, then you will bestow your natural endowment [of Quintessential Spirit] on external things and use it to falsely adorn yourself.58
It will not seep into your flesh and skin;
it will not pass into your bones and marrow;
it will not stay in your mind and awareness;
it will not collect in your Five Orbs.
Thus,
unless you have an internal master, what enters you from the outside will not stop.
Unless it is responding to something external, what exits from within will not be activated.
Thus,
when they hear good words and sound advice, even fools know to accept it.
When they are told of Perfect Potency and lofty actions, even the unworthy know to yearn for it.
Yet while those who accept it are many, those who make use of it are few.
While those who yearn for it are many, those who practice it are few.
Why is this so? Because they do not know how to return to their natures.
When those whose intrinsic [nature] has not opened up within insist on studying [Potency and lofty actions], [the words] enter their ears but do not take hold within their minds. How is this different from the songs of deaf mutes? They simply imitate what others do, but they do not have the means to make music themselves. The sounds issue forth from their mouths, but they merely spill out and disperse. [1/7/28–1/8/9]
The mind is the master of the Five Orbs. It regulates and directs the Four Limbs and circulates the blood and vital energy, gallops through the realms of accepting and rejecting, and enters and exits through the gateways and doorways of the hundreds of endeavors. Therefore if you do not realize it [your intrinsic nature] in your own mind and still want to control the entire world, this is like having no ears yet wanting to tune bells and drums and like having no eyes and wanting to enjoy patterns and ornaments. You will, most certainly, not be up to the task.
Thus the world is a spiritlike vessel: you cannot act deliberately on it; you cannot control it.59 Those who attempt to deliberately act on it will be defeated by it; those who try to control it will lose it. Now the reason that Xu You60 devalued the world and would not trade places with Yao was because he had the intention of leaving the world behind. Why was this so? Because he thought that you should act on the world by adapting to it [and not trying to force your own will on it].
The essentials of the world:
do not lie in the Other
but instead lie in the self;
do not lie in other people
but instead lie in your own person.
When you fully realize it [the Way] in your own person, then all the myriad things will be arrayed before you. When you thoroughly penetrate the teachings of the Techniques of the Mind, then you will be able to put lusts and desires, likes and dislikes, outside yourself.61
Therefore [if you realize the Way],
there is nothing to rejoice in and nothing to be angry about,
nothing to be happy about and nothing to feel bitter about.
You will be mysteriously unified with the myriad things,
and there is nothing you reject and nothing you affirm.
You transform and nourish a mysterious resplendence
and, while alive, seem to be dead.62 [1/8/9–18]
The world is my possession, but I am also the possession of the world. So how could there even be the slightest gap between me and the world?
Why must possessing the entire world consist of grasping power, holding onto authority, wielding the handles of life and death, and using them to put one’s own titles and edicts into effect? What I call possessing the entire world is certainly not this. It is simply realizing it [the Way] yourself. Once I am able to realize it [the Way], the entire world will also be able to realize me. When the entire world and I realize each other, we will always possess each other. And so how could there be any gap between us to be filled in? What I call “to realize it yourself” means to fulfill your own person. To fulfill your own person is to become unified with the Way.
Thus roaming along riverbank or seashore, galloping with Yao Niao63 or riding a chariot beneath a kingfisher-feathered canopy, the eyes seeing the “Plumes of the Pheasant” dance or the performance of the “Emblems of King Wu” music, the ears listening to lavishly clear, elegant, and rousing melodies or being stimulated by the licentious music of Zheng and Wey or getting wrapped up in the stirring traditional ballads of Chu or shooting at high-flying birds along the lakeshore or hunting wild beasts in hunting preserves: all these are things that average people find alluring and intoxicating.64 Sages experience them but not so much as to dominate their Quintessential Spirit or to disrupt their vital energy and concentration or cause their minds to be enticed away from their true nature.
To reside in a remote village on the side of a deep gorge hidden amid dense vegetation in a poor hut with a thatched roof on which grass sprouts up, whose door is overgrown by vines and which has small round windows like the mouth of a jar and a mulberry staff for a hinge, a hut whose roof is leaky and whose floor is damp, whose sleeping quarters are drafty and blanketed by snow and frost so that the grass mats are soaked; to wander in a vast marsh and ramble on the side of mountain slopes: these are things that would make average people develop dark moods and make them anxious and sad and unable to concentrate on anything. Sages live in places like this, but they do not make them worried or angry or make them lose what makes them content on their own. What are the reasons for this? Because they intrinsically have the means to penetrate to the Mechanism of Heaven, and they do not allow honor or debasement, poverty, or wealth to make them weary and lose their awareness of their Potency. Thus, the cawing of the crow, the squawking of the magpie: has cold or heat, dryness or dampness ever altered their sounds?65 [1/8/18–1/9/4]
Therefore when the realization of the Way is secure, it does not depend on the comings and goings of the myriad things. It is not because of a momentary alteration or transformation that I have secured the means to realize it myself. What I am calling “realization” means realizing the innate tendencies of nature and destiny and resting securely in the calmness that it produces.66 [1/9/6–7]
Now our nature and destiny emerge from the Ancestor together with our bodily shapes. Once these shapes are completed, our nature and destiny develop; once our nature and destiny develop, likes and dislikes arise.
Thus, scholars have the established format of essays; women have unchanging standards of conduct. The compass67 cannot become square, and the carpenter’s square68 cannot become round, nor can the marking cord become crooked and the angle rule69 become straight. The constancies of Heaven and Earth are such that climbing up a hill does not make you taller and sitting on the ground does not make you shorter.
Therefore, those who realize the Way:
when impoverished are not cowed,
when successful are not proud.
When they dwell on high, they are not stirred by it;
when they grasp a full vessel, they do not tip it over.
They are new but not shiny;
they are old but not faded.
They enter fire but are not scorched;
they enter water but are not drenched.
Therefore,
they do not depend on political position to be honored.
They do not depend on wealth to be rich.
They do not depend on physical force to be strong.
Even and empty, they flow downward,
and they soar upward along with transformations.
People like these
store their gold in the mountains,
hide their pearls in the deep,
do not profit by goods and wealth,
do not lust after political position and fame.
Therefore,
they do not take prosperity as contentment,
nor do they take privation as aggravation.
They do not take honor as security,
nor do they take debasement as danger.
Their bodies, spirits, vital energy, and awareness each dwell in their appropriate activities, and they thereby follow the workings of Heaven and Earth. [1/9/7–13]
The physical body is the abode of vitality;
the vital energy is the source of vitality;
and the spirit is what regulates vitality.
If one of these loses its position, then the other two will be harmed.
Therefore, sages ensure that each rests in its appropriate position, preserves its specific functions, and does not interfere with the others.
Thus, if the physical body resides where it is not safe, it will be destroyed;
if the use of vital energy does not match what replenishes it, it will drain away;
if the spirit acts in an inappropriate manner, it will become darkened.70
These three must be attentively guarded. [1/9/15–18]
Now consider the myriad things of this world, even spiders and wasps that creep and crawl. All know what they like and dislike, what brings them benefit and harm. Why? Because they are constantly guided by their natures. If it were to suddenly leave them, their bones and flesh would have no constant guide. People today can see clearly and hear acutely; their bodies can support weight, and their hundred joints can bend and stretch; they can differentiate between white and black, discern ugliness and beauty; and they can understand sameness and difference and clarify right and wrong. Why? Because vital energy infuses these activities, and the spirit regulates them. How do we know this is so?
In general, when there is something that occupies peoples’ awareness and their spirit is tied up in it, when they walk they stumble over tree roots or bump their heads on tree limbs without their realizing it. If you beckon to them, they cannot see you; if you call to them, they cannot hear you. Their eyes and ears have not left them, but they cannot respond. Why? Their spirit has lost what it is guarding [its concentration].
Thus,
when it focuses on the small, it forgets the great;
when it focuses on the inside, it forgets the outside;
when it focuses on the high, it forgets the low;
and when it focuses on the left, it forgets the right.
When there is nowhere it does not infuse, there is nowhere it does not focus. Therefore those who value emptiness [their concentration is so refined that] they take the tip of an autumn hair as their abode. [1/9/20–26]
Now there is a reason why madmen cannot avoid disasters of water and fire and why they cannot cross over obstacles like ditches and culverts. How could it be that they have no body, spirit, vital energy, and awareness? Despite this, they use them in a different fashion. They have lost the relative positions they are supposed to guard, and they have left their external or internal dwellings.71
Therefore,
if madmen make mistakes, they cannot compensate for them;
they cannot strike a balance between activity and rest.
Throughout their lives, they drag their withered bodies along the edge of mountain ridges and embankments, stumbling into filthy ditches and sewage pits. Although they were born the same as other people, they cannot escape their condemnation and ridicule. Why? Because their bodies and spirits have lost their relative positions.
Thus, when the spirit rules, the body follows and benefits from this.
When the body governs, the spirit follows and is harmed by this.
People who are covetous and filled with desires
are blinded by political power and profit
and are enticed by their lust for fame and station.
If by surpassing the wisdom of others they hope to grow tall in the eyes of the world, then their Quintessential Spirit will daily be squandered and become increasingly distant from them.
If they indulge in this for long and do not reverse this pattern when their bodies close down during daily activities, then their spirit will have no way to reenter. [1/9/28–1/10/5]
Thus throughout the world, there are sometimes the misfortunes of people who lose themselves through blindness and stupidity. This is the same thing as the tallow of a candle: the more the fire burns it, the more it melts and eventually disappears.
Now the more that the vital essence, spirit, vital energy, and awareness are tranquil, the more they will be abundant and strong. The more they are agitated, the more they will be depleted and aged.
Therefore, sages nourish their spirits,
harmonize and soften their vital breath,
and pacify their bodies.
They sink and float, plunge and soar, through life along with the Way.
In calmness, they relax into it.
When pressed, they employ it.
Their relaxing into it is like their taking off clothes;
their use of it is like shooting a crossbow.
In this way, there are no transformations of the myriad things that they do not welcome,
and no alterations of the hundreds of affairs to which they do not respond. [1/10/7–10]
Translated by Harold D. Roth
1. Liu he 
; that is, the three dimensions: up-down, front-back, left-right. See 4.1.
2. The four binding cords (si wei 
) are the “corners” of the compass-circle: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest. See 3.10.
3. These two August Lords are the mythical organizer deities Fuxi and Nüwa. Fuxi is often depicted holding a carpenter’s square and laying out the square earth; Nüwa is often depicted holding a compass and laying out the round heavens. See Major 1993, 267.
4. The Unhewn (pu 
) is a symbol for the desireless state found in both the Way and the sage-ruler who is united with the Way. Its locus classicus is Laozi 19 and 28.
5. To act non-actively (wuwei 
) is to not exert intentional action from the perspective of a fixed and limited ego. This is the famous dictum found throughout the Laozi.
6. The Potency (de 
) of the Way is its manifestation, through which it serves as the subtle guiding force in all phenomena that enables them to spontaneously act in accord with their unique natures.
7. In early Chinese philosophical texts, autumn hair is a common metaphor for something minute. Animals of many species shed their undercoats at the beginning of summer and grow a new undercoat in the fall. The tip of a new hair as it emerges from the animal’s skin at that time is extremely fine. See also chap. 16, n. 13.
8. In passages involving human cognition in the Huainanzi, the shen 
(spirit, soul) is associated with consciousness and has the ability to concentrate on perceptions and thoughts.
9. The Five Phases (wuxing 
)—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water—are the basic categories of vital energy (qi 
) of which all phenomena are manifestations.
10. Here Potency is thought of as a rarified kind of qi that infuses all phenomena and enables them to flourish. The locus classicus for this materialistic interpretation of dao and de is Inward Training. See Roth 1999, 46, 48, 96.
11. These last two are ominous portents indicating Heaven’s displeasure. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:14n.37.
12. That is, the bagua 
, or “eight trigrams,” of the Yijing.
13. For these mythical landscapes, see 4.3.
14. This is a metaphor for the sorry state of present times in comparison with the era of the sage-kings of antiquity. The theme that government has declined from an earlier ideal state is pursued in several of the later chapters of the Huainanzi. For the metaphor of supernaturally talented charioteering, see also 6.6.
15. Wisdom and precedent are key ideas that the syncretic Daoist tradition criticizes in the Confucians. Casting these aside is one of their characteristic literary tropes. For details, see Harold D. Roth, “Who Compiled the Chuang Tzu?” in Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts: Essays Dedicated to Angus C. Graham, ed. Henry Rosemont Jr. (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court Press, 1991), 95–128.
16. The authors are making a deliberate parallel between the dispassionate and accurate responses of the water mirror, the echo, and the shadow and the dispassionate and accurate responses of people’s innate nature which, however, become perverted when preferences arise. Only those who break through to the Way are able to set aside selfish preferences and retain their “true condition,” that is, the unbiased perception and knowing that is the inherent response of their intrinsic nature.
17. The “norms” (shu 
) appear to be the characteristic patterns of things. For example, in 12.1, the “norms” of the Way are detailed as follows:
Non-action responded, “The Way that I know
can be weak or strong;
it can be soft or hard;
it can be yin or yang;
it can be dark or bright;
it can embrace or contain Heaven and Earth;
it can respond to or await the Limitless.
These are the norms by which I know the Way.
18. Zhan He and Juan Xuan were legendary fishermen of superlative skill; both were said to be natives of Chu.
19. Yi 
, or Archer Yi, is the legendary bowman who, when all ten of the world’s suns came out at once, shot nine of them out of the sky. Feng was his student.
20. This is a metaphor for the Way, which is completely without form.
21. Reading shu 
(numerical) for 
(methods), a frequently substituted homophone.
22. Gun 
was a mythical figure charged by sage-ruler Shun to tame the great flood; he attempted to do so by building dikes but failed to control the raging waters. For his failure, he was turned to stone.
23. We see no reason to accept Lau’s emendation of “three ren” (each ren is eight feet) to “nine ren,” which would be a ridiculous seventy-two feet high.
24. Yu 
, or Yu the Great, succeeded in draining the flood by excavating new channels for the overflowing rivers. He became, at least in legend, the founder of the Xia, China’s first dynastic state. For Gun and Yu, see Mark Edward Lewis, The Flood Myths of Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006); for an analysis of this passage, see 63.
25. Yi Yin, legendary minister of King Tang, the founder of the Shang dynasty, was famous for his cooking (presumably of dogs, among other viands). For a passage similar to this one, see 16.34.
26. Zaofu appears frequently in the Huainanzi as the paragon of chariot drivers; he was said to have been the charioteer of King Mu of Zhou (tenth century B.C.E.) on his legendary journey to the West.
27. Li Zhu 
was a famous (mythical) minister of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor.
28. Kuang was a legendary music master. See also 6.1, 13.3, and 19.7; and Zhuangzi, chap. 2.
29. See n. 17.
30. The Divine Farmer is Shen Nong 
, mythical inventor of agriculture and sage-emperor of high antiquity.
31. See 15.1.
32. The ge 
, or “pueraria” (Pueraria lobata), is a plant with many creepers that can be used to make fine fabric for clothes.
33. He 
. The identity of this animal is uncertain. Commentators generally agree that it is the same as the he 
, which Morohashi’s Dai kanwa jiten (Great Sino-Japanese Dictionary) defines as a badger (mujina). However, the illustration accompanying that entry in Morohashi depicts a catlike animal, not at all resembling a badger. Grand dictionnaire Ricci de la langue chinoise, 7 vols. (Paris: Institut Ricci, 2001), 2:848, defines he as Nyctereutes procyonoides, sometimes called the raccoon dog in English but best known by its Japanese name, tanuki. (In 6.8 and 10.14, the raccoon dog, or tanuki, is referred to as a li 
.) We provisionally accept the definition of he as a badger. The passage here reflects an accurate observation of wildlife. The mynah is a bird of the subtropics that cannot survive in northern latitudes; the badger is an animal of dry northern plains and steppes that does not thrive in the moist lands of the south.
34. Compare the discussion in 19.4.
35. That is, Zhuan Xu; for the battle between these mythical titans, see 3.1.
36. This story is told more fully in the Zhuangzi (ZZ 28/82/1–4).
37. Laozi 76.
38. To anticipate (xian 
, to precede) or to act in advance of how situations will develop is a problem for the authors of the Huainanzi. It most certainly blocks the natural, spontaneous, and timely responses to situations as they arise and develop and causes much unnecessary thought, worry, and erroneous action. Acting spontaneously immediately after situations arise allows accurate responses.
39. Qu Boyu, an aristocrat (fl. sixth century B.C.E.) of the state of Wey, was known for his wisdom and humaneness.
40. Following the emendation suggested by Lau, HNZ 1/5/14. See also n. 7.
41. Laozi 43. According to William Boltz (private communication), it clearly reflects the guben, or “ancient text,” version that survives in the Fu Yi recension rather than the more common Wang Bi or He Shanggong version.
42. Emending yong 
(usefulness) to zu 
(ancestor), as in the Wenzi and following Liu Ji. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:88n.7.
43. Emending yin 
(abundant, flourishing) to yi 
(boldly), as in TPYL and following Zhuang Kuiji. See Lau, HNZ, 6n.6; and Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:88n.8.
44. These six lines of poetry have a similar syntax to the verses in the middle section of Laozi 15. Because they vary, it is possible that both are drawing on a common source, perhaps a collection of what I have called “early Daoist wisdom poetry” (Roth 1999, 190–92).
45. These two lines are from the Liu Ji redaction of 1501 and its descendants. Lau (HNZ, 6n.8) cites Wang Shumin as adding them as well.
46. Tools appear throughout the Huainanzi, often, as here, in metaphorical or symbolic senses.
The zhun 
, “level” (unlike the much later spirit-level familiar in the West, which features an air bubble in a closed liquid-filled tube), relied on the self-leveling property of water. It consisted of a board into which a water reservoir and a narrow straight channel were carved. When the board was held exactly level, water from the reservoir would fill the channel to an even depth. Sometimes the zhun sometimes consisted of the board alone (for use on flat surfaces), and sometimes the board was fitted with a handle so that the level could be held up to a wall or other raised surface.
47. The sheng 
, “marking cord,” is a device consisting of a hollow box containing ink-soaked vegetable fiber, a string arranged to run through the ink box and be inked by it, and a reel or other device to control the string. It functions in the same way as a Western carpenter’s chalk line, to mark a straight line (e.g., to indicate where to cut a plank or stone). It can also be hung from a high position to function as a plumb line. Sheng is sometimes translated as “marking line” or “line marker,” which are appropriate renderings; it is also sometimes mistranslated as “measuring line” or “tape measure.” But this is an error because the principal function of the device is to mark straight lines, not to measure linear distance.
48. The Five Orbs (wu zang 
) correspond to the five organs of the human physiology that were thought to be critical generative and coordinating junctures for the dynamic matrix of qi that composed the mind–body system: the lungs, liver, spleen, gall bladder, and kidneys. The term refers to organic systems, not just to the physical viscera; hence we speak of the pulmonary, renal, choleric, hepatic, and splenic orbs. See 7.2 and app. A.
49. We accept the interpretation of this line by Kusuyama Haruki , Enanji, in Shinshaku kanbun taikei (Tokyo: Meiji shōin, 1979–1988), 54:66.
50. Literally, “an owl.” The xiao 
(generally taken to be a kind of owl) is for the ancient Chinese a symbol of audacity and courage that in the Huainanzi is emblematic of perfected human beings. In Chinese mythology it is also known as the creature that devoured its own mother. See also 12.5.
51. In the Northern Song redaction, these four lines occur ten lines later in the text, after “You will never forget your mysterious support” (Lau, HNZ 1/7/14–15, 7n.3). They are totally missing in the Daozang redaction, but Lau adds them in the later position following the Northern Song redaction. We follow the Liu Ji redaction and its descendants in placing them here, at the beginning of a new section on the Way. This is also where Kusuyama places them (Enanji, 66). The textual evidence is equivocal, and we place these lines here because this location seems to better fit the flow of the argument.
52. According to the commentator Gao You, there was a Chu cult surrounding these mystic places. Le Blanc and Mathieu 2003, 36, identify them as two panoramic viewing locales in the Chu capital. They further identify the “Cloudy Dreams” as a vast marsh in the state of Chu and the “Sandy Hillock” as part of the pleasure garden of the tyrant Djou, last king of the Shang dynasty.
53. Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:104, cites the Gao You commentary to the LSCQ that attributes these pieces to these two mythical sage emperors. Mathieu further identifies them: the “nine songs” celebrated the accession of the mythical sage-emperor Shun, and the “six pieces” were favored music of the mythical sage-emperor Zhuan Xu, grandson of the Yellow Emperor and grandfather of Shun.
54. The kingfisher’s iridescent feathers were used in items of women’s jewelry, such as hair ornaments.
55. In their shift to the first person, these three lines appear to be a quotation from a source similar to Laozi 20: “I alone am inactive,” and so on.
56. How to do this is the main theme of the Zhuangzi, chap. 20, “Zhile” (Perfect Contentment).
57. The text attributes this licentious music to the last Shang capital, Zhaoge 
, and its northern suburbs, Beibi 
. Le Blanc and Mathieu 2003, 37, locate it in the northeast of the state of Qi in Henan.
58. The authors seem to be differentiating between two words commonly used to refer to a person’s interior experience, nei 
and zhong 
. We understand their use of the former to refer to the intrinsic nature of human beings and the latter to refer to a person’s interior life. Further, the authors imply that human nature also contains a supply of quintessential spirit, the essential vital energy of the spirit, which is the most important foundation of consciousness. Here they argue that we can waste this vital essence on extrinsic rather than intrinsic activities, to our detriment.
59. Following Wang Shumin’s emendation in Lau (HNZ 1/8/14n.3), and adding “you cannot control it” because of parallelism.
60. Xu You was a legendary hermit.
61. The “Techniques of the Mind” (xinshu 
) refer at one and the same time to the methods of inner cultivation and the two texts in the Guanzi collection of the same name. These techniques are said to strip away desires and preferences from consciousness. For details, see Roth 1999.
62. You fully realize the Way as the unifying ground of your being and the myriad things in a conscious experience that is devoid of all opposites and in which you are in a deep trance and appear to others to be dead. This recalls the description in Zhuangzi 2 of the sage Nanguo Ziqi, whose “body is like withered wood and mind is like dead ashes” (ZZ 2/3/15).
63. Yao Niao was a legendary horse, renowned for speed and endurance.
64. The “Emblems of King Wu” were said to have been composed by the Duke of Zhou to celebrate the conquest of the Shang. Along with the “Plumes of the Pheasant,” they are epitomes of artistic expression. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:115; and Le Blanc and Mathieu 2003, 337n.14.
65. Because sages totally penetrate the Mechanism of Heaven—which is a metaphor for the normative natural order—they are no more affected by living in exalted or demeaned circumstances than are the noises of crows and magpies affected by their climate.
66. Accepting Lau’s (HNZ, 9n.3) emendation, which adds the character de 
(to realize) directly in front of “the truth of our nature and destiny.”
67. The gui 
, “compass,” is a device for inscribing circles. Unlike the draftsman’s dividers familiar in Western usage, the Han-era gui compass is often depicted as a device in the shape of a lowercase “h” having a long vertical member to mark the center point, an adjustable horizontal radial member, and a shorter vertical member supporting a scribing device to mark the circle itself.
68. The ju 
, “square,” is a carpenter’s square. It is usually depicted as a right-angle (rather than T-shaped) device, sometimes braced diagonally.
69. The basic meaning of gou 
is “hook” or “angle.” As the name of a tool, we translate it as “angle rule.” The gou seems to have been similar to a modern bevel-square, used to mark and duplicate variable angles. It also was used to make sets of objects, such as chariot axles, in a range of diameters. The gou probably resembled a ju “square,” except that the arms of the device would have been free to assume any desired angle and it would have included some means of fixing the arms in place at that angle for as long as necessary.
A difficulty with this word is that it has multiple meanings. Depending on context, it can mean “hook” or “angle” (as in si gou 
, the “Four Hooks” of the heavens [see 3.16] or of the liubo board or TLV mirror), or “hook” as in “fishhook” (as in 1.6); or as a kind of weapon, which we translate as “battle-hook.” See 12.34. The appropriate meaning is not always clear.
70. Note the contrast between the darkened spirit here and the exalted spiritlike clarity spoken of in 1.16.
71. A similar argument is made in chap. 7.