“QUINTESSENTIAL SPIRIT” is the first chapter of the Huainanzi to introduce human beings systematically into the grand scheme of things. The text continues its methodical explication of the underlying powers, patterns, and forces of the cosmos and its creatures before turning, in the later chapters of the work, to illustrations and amplifications of the workings of the Way in the world of affairs. Chapters 1 and 2 introduced cosmology and ontology; chapters 3 through 5 explored the various dimensions of Heaven, Earth, and Time; and chapter 6 explained the mysterious operations of ganying resonance by which things in the world interact through stimuli and responses. In chapter 7, the authors now turn their attention to human beings, the third leg of the early Chinese conceptual tripod of Heaven, Earth, and Man.
The chapter begins with a brief reprise of the cosmology relevant to understanding the origins of the vital energy that constitutes the cosmos and the creatures that inhabit it before going on to consider humans in their guise as physical/spiritual bodies and microcosms of the universe. The chapter then introduces the concept of the Quintessential Spirit as the force that animates the physical body and consciousness itself. It also discusses the paragons of human perfection, Genuine Persons (zhenren), sages, and Perfected Persons (zhiren), who are characterized by, among other qualities, their ability to ignore external stimuli and to draw Potency from their source in the Way and by their indifference to the exigencies of life and death. The qualities of human perfection are not cultivated through self-mortification but through an apophatic inner-cultivation practice in which the adept empties the mind and body of passions, prejudices, and thoughts until realizing the unification of innate nature and the Way. The resultant indifference to ordinary desires and the ability to respond spontaneously and harmoniously to whatever situation arises takes on political coloration in a discussion of the attitude of the sage toward government: able to serve unerringly as ruler when the time is right but not covetous of power, not greedy for wealth, and not concerned with self-aggrandizement. The chapter ends with a striking image of the goal of this inward training and the self-discipline it requires: it is not the arrow that misses the bull’s-eye but the archer who fails to guide it accurately.
The Chapter Title
The title of the chapter is “Jing shen” 
, which we translate as “Quintessential Spirit.”1 Jing means “essence” or “quintessence” or, in adjectival form, “quintessential.” It refers to the most highly refined and true to its own nature form of any quality. It is often used nominally as a shortened form of jingqi (quintessential vital energy). Shen is “spirit,” covering a wide range of meanings within the spectrum of that term, from “deity” and “divine” to “animating spirit” or “vital force.” In the Huainanzi, it is associated with properties of consciousness and having the ability to oversee or coordinate the various mental activities of perception and cognition (see 1.20). As section 7.1 explains, everything in the world is made of qi, “vital energy,” whether the pure, rarified qi of Heaven or the turbid, gross qi of Earth. Shen can be thought of as composed of the most highly rarified and purified kind of qi, and jingshen as the quintessence of shen. To the extent that shen itself has a basis as a form of qi, it is this jingshen, the quintessential vital energy of the spirit. The Quintessential Spirit occupies and animates the physical form but must be guarded lest it leak away or become sullied. A good way to prevent this leakage is to minimize perception and the passions and prejudices that result from it.
Although we prefer to see the primary meaning of the chapter title as an adjective–noun phrase, it can also be understood as a double noun phrase, “quintessence (= quintessential qi) and spirit.” In some passages of the Huainanzi this meaning is confirmed by parallelism with another double noun phrase; for example in 7.6:
Their ethereal and corporeal souls are settled in their dwelling;
their Quintessence and spirit are preserved in their root.
It would not be incorrect to render the chapter title as “Quintessence and Spirit,” but “Quintessential Spirit” more nearly captures the subject matter of the chapter itself. Moreover, contextual research indicates that when jing and qi are unqualified, they are most often followed by predicates of fluid motion (for example, “flows,” “swirls,” “seeps”). When shen is unqualified, it is often followed by a predicate of instrumentality (for example, “directs,” “makes,” “orders”). However, the compound jingshen is most frequently followed by predicates of fluid motion, as are jing and qi. Thus jingshen has the properties of a type of qi. It is, basically, the quintessential vital energy of the spirit, its most quintessential form. Hence in most passages, it is translated as “Quintessential Spirit.”2
Summary and Key Themes
“Quintessential Spirit” begins with a recapitulation of chapter 1’s Laozi-based cosmogony, but in this instance with the specific purpose of explaining the origins of the Quintessential Spirit. Two “spiritlike powers” differentiated into yin and yang and became manifested as qi, and various sorts of qi congealed to form different sorts of creatures. Humans are distinguished from beasts by being made of purer and more refined vital energy. They contain Quintessential Spirit—that is, their heavenly dimension that is preserved by sages who can maintain tranquillity and emptiness. Section 7.2 differentiates between Quintessential Spirit, received from Heaven, and physical form, received from Earth. Humans recapitulate the cosmos in microcosm. Their heads are round, like Heaven; their feet (side by side) form a square, like Earth; and their 366 joints match the year’s 366 days. The fetus develops in stages over a ten-month period, and the five visceral orbs connect to the organs of sense and correlate with various natural forces.
The Quintessential Spirit is exalted above all these aspects of human beings: it alone, as section 7.6 states, is more precious than “the jade half-disk of the Xiahou clan.” It is important both to preserve one’s innate store of Quintessential Spirit and to generate new stores. The way to do this is consistent with the recommendations of the Daoist inner-cultivation tradition to avoid excessive sense stimulation, perception, and concomitant desires (as we find in sections 7.4 and 7.5). Sections 7.3, 7.4, and 7.12 offer advice on how to accomplish this: concentrate your breathing and attention and relinquish thoughts, feelings, and desires, “cast aside wisdom and precedent.” Eventually, you will reach a condition of complete equanimity and pure emptiness, a state in which your “inborn nature is merged with the Way” (7.7). Then when returning to the world of dualities, you will have many valuable qualities. Your sense perceptions are always clear and accurate; your emotions are always calmed; and you rest in harmony amid the turmoil of the world. People like this are sages and are able to avoid the pitfalls of the physical body: the eyes and ears that can drain off vital energy and the lusts that excite the senses. This is very much in the tradition of thinkers like the author, for example, of Laozi 12: “The five colors blind human eyes; the five notes deafen human ears,” and so on. Sections 7.5, 7.6, and 7.7 explain that sages exhibit a cultivated indifference to life and death, to sorrow and joy, and to success and failure; they do not allow emotional states to cause their Quintessential Spirit to leak out externally. When they become perfected, they are profoundly spiritlike; “they contain nothing, and things cannot disturb them.”
This chapter also discusses some of the paragons of inner cultivation. In addition to sages are the Perfected (zhiren) and the Genuine (zhenren). Both are described in sections 7.7 and 7.10 as being able to concentrate on their inner lives and take their outer lives lightly. They can maintain the Origin (that is, the Way) amid the chaos of the dusty world by practicing non-action (wuwei) and maintaining a body like “withered wood” and a “mind . . . like dead ashes.” They are metaphorically said to “study with the Undying Teacher” and to be so indifferent to self-preservation that “they take life and death to be a single transformation.”
Perhaps this treasured indifference is why the authors of this chapter take pains to differentiate their practices from common techniques of physical self-cultivation to attain health and longevity, known in the late Warring States and early Han periods as daoyin 
(guiding and pulling [of qi]), that now survive principally among the early Chinese medical corpus, especially the texts discovered at Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan.3 These exercises, which often involved stretching and bending and mimicking the positions of animals, are criticized in section 7.8, which opens with a surprisingly dismissive reference:
If you huff and puff, exhale and inhale,
blow out the old and pull in the new,
practice the Bear Hang, the Bird Stretch,
the Duck Splash, the Ape Leap,
the Owl Gaze, and the Tiger Stare:
This is what is practiced by those who nurture the body. They are not the practices of those who polish the mind.
This criticism, also found in Zhuangzi 15, gives a fascinating glimpse into the similarities, perceived even then, between the qi cultivation practiced for physical benefits and the qi cultivation practiced for more transformative and deeply satisfying spiritual benefits, which seems to have involved more still sitting than active movement.4 The reference here is to a process of “nourishing the spirit” (yangshen), the aspect of human beings that is “born together with Heaven and Earth” and that is not transformed at death.
Having established the definitions of spiritual paragons and their qualities and methods of attainment and after having given some examples of such people in the narratives of section 7.9, the authors of “Quintessential Spirit” then address the reasons why a government led by such perfected human beings is superior to any other kind. They emphasize the assertion that these sages do not have any ambitions to rule; power, wealth, and the elaborate trappings of state are of no interest to them. As section 7.12 states: “Possessing and not possessing the empire are the same reality to them.” True sages are utterly indifferent to such things, simple in their tastes and tranquil in their demeanor; possessing the empire is nothing to them. They eat enough to survive and wear enough clothing to be protected from the elements, that is all. Various examples of sage rulers—familiar figures such as Yao and Shun—are used to illustrate these points and to contrast with the shallow scholars and narrow-minded literati of the present age.
Sections 7.11 and 7.15 single out the Confucians for such criticism. While the authors do express a grudging admiration for exemplars of the ethically superior Confucian paragon of the junzi (Superior Man), they see them as inferior to their own Daoist paragons: “People like them act only according to what is right and are not drawn to material things. How much more is this so for those who act through non-action?” (7.11). Section 7.11 then compares scholars who study the Odes and the Documents with impoverished villagers who are satisfied with the music they make by drumming on pots and pans. By contrast, those who “know the meaning of the Great Discourse” are like those who make the music of the great ceremonial bells and drums. Section 7.14 states,
Shallow scholars in this declining age do not understand how to get to the origins of their minds and return to their root. They merely sculpt and polish their natures and adorn and stifle their genuine responses in order to interact with their age.
They are contrasted with “those who penetrate through to the Way” who cultivate the “Techniques of the Mind,” find repose in Potency, and desire nothing yet attain what they desire. Section 7.15 explicitly critiques Confucians who “do not get to the foundations of why they have desires but instead prohibit what they desire.” They are contrasted with perfected adepts who “rest in the vast universe, roam in the country of the Limitless, ascend Tai Huang, [and] ride Tai Yi . . . [and] play with Heaven and Earth in the palms of their hands.”
The chapter’s final section (7.16) lists those rulers who allowed themselves to be distracted by desires and so came to bad ends.
The message of the latter parts of the chapter especially is that incompetent and greedy rulers and advisers abound in the present age and that sage-rulers are in short supply. Because of this, it is important that we create them through the inner-cultivation practices outlined in this chapter.
Sources
“Quintessential Spirit” appears to draw its cosmogony and cosmology from the Laozi and, perhaps more directly, from the early chapters of the Huainanzi (which themselves are based on the Laozi) and to borrow its image of the Perfected Person—tranquil, empty, self-contained—from the Zhuangzi. In particular, chapter 15 of the Zhuangzi, “Ingrained Ideas” (Keyi 
), shares much of this chapter’s perspective on the attainment of spiritual perfection. Specific turns of phrase, technical terminology, and critiques of practitioners of daoyin (Grandfather Peng’s Ripe Old Agers) and of embittered or self-promoting moralists (Confucians) are so close that one could make a fair case for common authorship.5 The other major influence of this chapter is the inner-cultivation tradition preserved in such texts as Guanzi’s “Neiye” (Inward Training) and “Xinshu” (Techniques of the Mind). The interest in the cultivation of jing, qi, shen, and jingshen in chapter 7 of the Huainanzi seems to be directly drawn from this tradition. Indeed, as explained earlier, although the actual phrase “Techniques of the Mind” is used and advocated, it is not clear in this instance if it is the specific text or the psychospiritual cultivation practices that is intended.
It is important to note that “Quintessential Spirit” and these earlier sources discuss and refer to the same methods of psychospiritual cultivation that we find in the later organized Daoist religion. While specific historical evidence linking this text with those later practices is lacking, there is little doubt that chapter 7 of the Huainanzi was transmitted through the Han at local courts and centers of power in what Mark Csíkszentmihalyi calls an “unofficial transmission.”6 Local academies and learning salons preserved methods and techniques associated with the rise of the late Han Daoist millennial rebellions and the religious traditions they formed. He suggests that many of the texts from Liu An’s court were part of this kind of unofficial transmission.
The Chapter in the Context of the Huainanzi as a Whole
“Quintessential Spirit” builds on and complements the six chapters that precede it. The Huainanzi’s basic cosmological orientation is extended to the world of humans, who are made like all things of qi, partaking of both Heaven and Earth, each person a microcosm of the universe. But people are also portrayed as frail, mortal, and subject to all sorts of distractions and ills occasioned by stimulation of the sensory organs. The chapter then develops the notion of jingshen, introduced in chapter 1, as the force animating the physical body whose retention is the focus of sagely self-cultivation.
“Quintessential Spirit” paves the way for the many chapters of the Huainanzi, especially those in the second part of the book, that deal extensively with the idea of the sage-ruler, by defining more clearly what a sage is (especially the highly self-cultivated manifestation of sagehood, the Perfected) and what a sage’s attitude is toward holding the reins of power. When we read those later chapters in light of chapter 7, we realize why sages are so rarely encountered in the world. In addition, easy as it may be to talk about the concept of “sagely rule” (sheng zhi 
), finding it practiced in the world as we know it is a rare event indeed. This message from the latter sections of chapter 7 is picked up again later in the text and becomes one of the principal themes of chapter 14, “Sayings Explained.” There, too, we find the idea that true sages are tranquil and self-contained and that they do not lust after political power.
That message, in both this chapter and chapter 14, may have had immediate relevance to the life and fortunes of its author/editor Liu An. An example is the fraught political climate in which the Huainanzi was compiled and written and Liu An’s own ambiguous roles as an ambitious intellectual, a possible heir to Emperor Jing’s throne, a would-be adviser to Emperor Wu, and a potentially seditious imperial kinsman. The later sections of chapter 7 maintain that sages are indifferent to power, have no interest in ascending a throne, desire tranquillity and self-cultivation, and are unaffected by the lusts and desires to which ordinary men are subject. These all add up to a subtle plea by Liu An to his imperial cousin (Jing) and nephew (Wu) that the writing of the Huainanzi —despite its implicit (and dangerous) advocacy of a partly decentralized imperial realm in which the imperial central government coexisted with neofeudal kingdoms—really did not pose a threat to the imperial throne. Sages, according to this subtle message, are above that sort of thing. As chapter 21, “An Overview of the Essentials,” puts it,7 the sage is not “foolishly immersed in the advantages of political power, [nor] seductively confused by the exigencies of affairs.” The Huainanzi is, among other things, a political document written during a very dangerous time in the history of the former Han dynasty. The image of the sage presented in this chapter is thus intimately bound up with the political concerns of Liu An’s time.
Harold D. Roth and John S. Major
1. For more extensive discussions of the terms jing and shen and the compound jingshen, see app. A.
2. Harold D. Roth, “The Early Taoist Concept of Shen: A Ghost in the Machine?” in Sagehood and Systematizing Thought in the Warring States and Early Han, ed. Kidder Smith (Brunswick, Maine: Bowdoin College Press, 1989), 11–32.
3. For a brilliant translation and analysis of this literature, see Donald Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature (London: Kegan Paul International, 1998).
4. Compare ZZ 15/5–6. Some of these positions are depicted in the chart of the qi cultivation exercises known as “guiding and pulling” (daoyin 
) found at Mawangdui Tomb 3.
5. For parallel passages from the Zhuangzi, see the notes to chap. 7.
6. Mark Csikszentmihalyi, “Traditional Taxonomies and Revealed Texts in the Han,” in Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, Ritual, ed. Livia Kohn and Harold D. Roth (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002), 94–97; Harold D. Roth, “Han Cosmology and Mantic Practices,” in Daoism Handbook, ed. Livia Kohn (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 52–73.
7. In 21.2, as part of the summary of chap. 13, “Boundless Discourses,” addressing a related point.
Of old, in the time before there was Heaven and Earth:
There were only images and no forms.
All was obscure and dark,
vague and unclear,
shapeless and formless,
and no one knows its gateway.
There were two spirits, born in murkiness, one that established Heaven and the other that constructed Earth.
So vast! No one knows where they ultimately end.
So broad! No one knows where they finally stop.
Thereupon
they differentiated into the yin and the yang
and separated into the eight cardinal directions.
The firm and the yielding formed each other;
the myriad things thereupon took shape.
The turbid vital energy became creatures;
the refined vital energy became humans.
Therefore,
the Quintessential Spirit is of Heaven;
the skeletal system is of Earth.
When the Quintessential Spirit enters its gateway
and the skeletal system returns to its root,
how can I still survive?
For this reason, the sages
model themselves on Heaven,
accord with their genuine responses,
are not confined by custom,
or seduced by other men.
They take
Heaven as father,
Earth as mother,
yin and yang as warp,
the four seasons as weft.
Through the tranquillity of Heaven, they become pure.
Through the stability of Earth, they become calm.
Among the myriad things,
those who lose this perish;
those who follow this live. [7/54/25–7/55/2]
Tranquillity and stillness are the dwellings of spiritlike illumination;
emptiness and nothingness are where the Way resides.
For this reason,
those who seek for it externally lose it internally;
those who preserve it internally attain it externally as well.
It is like the roots and branches of trees: none of the thousands of limbs and tens of thousands of leaves does not derive from the roots. [7/55/4–5]
The Quintessential Spirit is what we receive from Heaven;
the physical body is what we are given by Earth.
Therefore it is said:
“The one generates the two;
the two generate the three;
the three generate the myriad things.
The myriad things carry the yin and embrace the yang and, through the blending of vital energy, become harmonious.”1
Therefore it is said:
“In the first month, fertilization occurs.
In the second month, a corporeal mass develops.
In the third month, an embryo forms.
In the fourth month, the flesh is produced.
In the fifth month, the muscles form.
In the sixth month, the bones develop.
In the seventh month, the fetus forms.
In the eighth month, the fetus starts to move.
In the ninth month, its movements become more pronounced.
In the tenth month, the birth occurs.”
In this way,
the physical body is completed
and the five orbs are formed.
Therefore,
the pulmonary orb2 regulates the eyes;
the renal orb regulates the nose;
the choleric orb regulates the mouth;
the hepatic orb regulates the ears;
and the splenic orb regulates the tongue.
The external ones are on the outer side;
the internal ones are on the inner side.
They open and close, expand and contract,
and each has its conduits and connections.
Therefore,
the roundness of the head is in the image of Heaven;
the squareness of human feet is in the image of Earth.3
Heaven has four seasons, five phases, nine regions, and 366 days.
Humans have four limbs, five orbs, nine apertures, and 366 joints.
Heaven has wind, rain, cold, and heat;
humans have taking, giving, joy, and anger.
Therefore,
the choleric orb parallels4 the clouds;
the pulmonary orb parallels the air;
the hepatic orb parallels the wind;
the renal orb parallels the rain;
and the splenic orb parallels the thunder.
In this way human beings form a triad with Heaven and Earth, and the mind is the ruler of this.
Therefore,
the ears and eyes are the sun and moon;
the blood and vital energy are the wind and rain.
In the sun there is a three-legged crow;
in the moon there is a speckled toad.5
When sun and moon err in their periodic motions, fireflies have no light, wind and rain are not appropriate to the season, and destruction occurs and disasters arise.
When the five asterisms err in their periodic movements, provinces and states meet with calamity. [7/55/7–16]
The Way of Heaven and Earth is immense and grand, yet it still must
restrict its brilliance
and conserve its spiritlike illumination.
The ears and eyes of human beings, how can one expect them to toil for long periods without rest?
The Quintessential Spirit, how can one expect it to course [through the body] for long periods without respite?
Therefore,
the blood and vital energy are the flowerings of humankind,
and the Five Orbs are the essence of humankind.
If the blood and vital energy are concentrated within the Five Orbs and [the Quintessential Spirit] does not flow out, then the chest and belly are replete and lusts and desires are eliminated.
When the chest and belly are replete and lusts and desires are eliminated, then the ears and eyes are clear, and hearing and vision are acute.
When the ears and eyes are clear and hearing and vision are acute, we call this “clarity.”
When the Five Orbs can be subordinated to the mind and their functioning is without error, then fluctuating attention will be done away with, and the circulation [of the vital energy] will not be awry.
When fluctuating attention is done away with and the circulation is not awry, then the Quintessential Spirit is abundant, and the vital energy is not dispersed.
When the Quintessential Spirit is abundant and the vital energy is not dispersed, then you are functioning according to Underlying Patterns.
When you function according to Underlying Patterns, you attain equanimity.
When you attain equanimity, you develop penetrating awareness.
When you develop penetrating awareness, you become spiritlike.
When you are spiritlike,
with vision, there is nothing unseen;
with hearing, there is nothing unheard;
with actions, there is nothing incomplete.
For this reason,
anxiety and worry cannot enter,
and aberrant vital energy cannot seep in. [7/55/18–24]
Thus there are certain things that you seek outside the Four Seas yet never meet and others that you guard within the physical frame yet never see.
Therefore,
the more you seek, the less you attain;
the more you see, the less you understand. [7/55/26–27]
The apertures of perception [eyes and ears] are the portals of the Quintessential Spirit.
The vital energy and attention are the emissaries and servants of the Five Orbs.
When the eyes and ears are enticed by the joys of sound and color, then the Five Orbs oscillate and are not stable.
When the Five Orbs oscillate and are not stable, then the blood and vital energy are agitated and not at rest.
When the blood and vital energy are agitated and not at rest, then the Quintessential Spirit courses out [through the eyes and ears] and is not preserved.
When the Quintessential Spirit courses out and is not preserved,
then when either good fortune or misfortune arrives, although it be the size of hills and mountains, one has no way to recognize it.
But
if you make your ears and eyes totally clear and profoundly penetrating and not enticed by external things;
if your vital energy and attention are empty, tranquil, still, and serene and you eliminate lusts and desires;
if the Five Orbs are stable, reposed, replete, and full and not leaking [the vital energies];
if your Quintessential Spirit is preserved within your physical frame and does not flow out;
then even gazing back beyond bygone ages and looking further than things that are to come; even these things would not be worth doing, much less discriminating between bad and good fortune.
Therefore it is said, “The farther you go, the less you know.”6 This says that the Quintessential Spirit cannot be allowed to be enticed by external things.
Therefore,
the five colors disrupt the eyes and cause them to be unclear;
the five sounds confuse the ears and cause them to not be acute;
the five tastes disrupt the mouth and cause it to lose the ability to taste;
preferences confuse the nature and cause it to fly about [from one thing to the next].7
These four things are how the people of this world commonly nourish their natures. However, they all are human attachments.
Therefore it is said:
“Lusts and desires cause humans’ vital energy to dissipate;
likes and dislikes cause human’ minds to tire.”
If you do not quickly eliminate them, your attention and vital energy will diminish daily. [7/55/27–7/56/8]
Why is it that common people are not able to complete the full course of their lives and, along the way, die young by execution? “It is because they set too much store in living. Now only those who are able to not make living their concern are able to attain long life.”8
Heaven and Earth revolve and interpenetrate;
the myriad things bustle about yet form a unity.
If one is able to know this unity, then there is nothing that cannot be known;
if one cannot know this unity, then there is not even one thing that can truly be known.
For example, I live within the world, yet I am also a thing in it. I do not know whether the things of the world are complete because of me or whether only without me are things not incomplete. However, I am also a thing and things relate to things.9 A thing is related to other things [by this underlying unity], so why must we be things to [i.e., objectify] one another? Even though this may be so,
what gain is there in its giving me life;
what loss is there in its taking my life away?
Because what fashions and transforms us treats me as an unfired brick, I have no way to defy it.10 How do I know that to practice acupuncture and moxibustion and to desire life is not a delusion and to seek death by strangulation is not a blessing? Perhaps life is just servitude, and death is a respite from this toil.11
The world is vast: who understands it?
It gives me life, but not because I intentionally seek it.
It takes my life away, but not because I intentionally seek an end.
Desire life, but do not strive for it.
Detest death, but do not refuse it.
Demean it, but do not detest it.
Honor it, but do not rejoice in it.
Follow your heavenly endowment and be at peace until you develop it to the fullest.
In life I have a form that is seven feet tall;12
in death I have [the space of] a coffin’s worth of soil.
My life classes me with the things that have form;
my death sinks me into the oblivion of the formless.
Thus,
because of my life, a thing is not added to the multitude;
because of my death, the soil does not get any thicker.
So how can I know what is pleasant or hateful, beneficial or harmful in all of this? [7/56/10–20]
The way in which what fashions and transforms us takes hold of things can be compared with the way in which the potter molds his clay. The earth that he has taken hold of and made into bowls and pots is no different from the earth before it had been taken from the ground. The earth that remains after he has made the vessels and then smashed them to pieces and thoroughly soaked them with water so that they return to their cause is no different from the earth that had been in the bowls and pots that had existed earlier.
Now the people who live along the banks of a river draw water from it to irrigate their gardens, but the water in the river does not resent it. The families who live near filthy ponds break through their banks and drain them into the river, but the water from these ponds does not rejoice in this. Thus there is no difference between the water in the river and the water irrigating gardens, and there also is no difference between the water in the ponds and the water in the river. Thus
sages adapt to the times and are at peace with their station in life;
they conform to their age and so find happiness in their calling. [7/56/22–26]
Sadness and joy are aberrations of Potency,
pleasure and anger are excesses of the Way;
fondness and resentment are the fetters of the mind.13
Therefore it is said [that sages]:
“In their life, act in accord with Heaven;
in their death, transform with other things.
In tranquillity, share the Potency of the yin;
in activity, share the surge of the yang.”14
Being calm and limitless, their Quintessential Spirit is not dissipated amid external things, and the world naturally submits to them.
Thus,
the mind is the ruler of the physical form;
the spirit is the treasure of the mind.
When the physical form toils without rest, it becomes exhausted;
when the Quintessence is used unceasingly, it runs out.15
Thus sages honor and esteem it and do not dare to allow it to seep out. [7/56/28–7/57/3]
The owner of the jade half-disk of the Xiahou clan stores it in a strong box because it is supremely precious.16 The preciousness of the Quintessential Spirit is not merely that of the jade half-disk of the Xiahou clan.
For this reason, sages
based in Nothing respond to Something
and invariably fathom the Underlying Patterns;
based in the empty accept the full;
and invariably fathom the temporal nodes.17
Calm and still, empty and tranquil,
by this they reach the end of their life spans.
Thus,
there is nothing from which they are too aloof;
nothing with which they are too intimate.
Embracing the Potency and blending with the harmonious,
they accord with Heaven.
They make
the Way their boundary
and Potency their neighbor.
They do not make [attaining] good fortune a priority;
they do not make [avoiding] misfortune an antecedent.18
Their ethereal and corporeal souls are settled in their dwelling;19
their Quintessence and spirit are preserved in their root.
Death and life do not alter them. Therefore we say they are supremely spiritlike. [7/57/5–9]
Those whom we call the Perfected are people whose inborn nature is merged with the Way.
Therefore,
they possess it but appear to have nothing.
They are full but appear to be empty.
They are settled in this unity and do not know of any duality
They cultivate what is inside and pay no attention to what is outside.
They illuminate and clarify Grand Simplicity;
taking no action, they revert to the Unhewn.20
They embody the foundation and embrace the spirit in order to roam freely within the confines of Heaven and Earth.21 Untrammeled, they ramble outside this dusty world and wander aimlessly in their taskless calling.22 Unfettered and unhindered, they harbor no clever devices or cunning knowledge in their minds.
Thus death and life are great indeed, but they do not alter them. Although Heaven and Earth support and nourish, they are not protected by them. They discern the flawless and do not get mixed up with things. While seeing the chaos of affairs, they are able to preserve their origin.23
Beings like these
negate obsession and fear
and cast aside sensory perceptions.24
Their mental activity is concentrated internally
and penetrates through to comport with the One.
At rest, they have no objectives;
in motion, they set no goals.
Artlessly they go forth;
peacefully they come back.
Their bodies are like withered wood;
their minds are like dead ashes.25
They forget the Five Orbs;
lose their physical frames;
know without studying;
see without looking;
complete without acting;
and differentiate without judging.
When stimulated, they respond;
when pressed, they move;
when it is unavoidable, they go forth,26
like the brilliant glow of a flame,
like the mimicry of a shadow.
Taking the Way as their guiding thread, they are necessarily so. Embracing the foundation of Grand Purity, they contain nothing,27 and things cannot disturb them. Vast and empty, they are tranquil and without worry.
Great marshes may catch fire, but it cannot burn them.
Great rivers may freeze over, but it cannot chill them.
Great thunder may shake the mountains, but it cannot startle them.28
Great storms may darken the sun, but it cannot harm them.
For this reason,
they view precious pearls and jade as being the same as gravel.
They view the supremely exalted and maximally favored [at court] as being the same as wandering guest [scholars].
They view [the beauties] Mao Qiang and Xi Shi29 as being the same as funerary figurines.
They take life and death to be a single transformation
and the myriad things to be a single whole.
They merge their vital essence with the Root of Great Purity
and roam freely beyond the boundless.
They have vital essence but do not [recklessly] expend it;
and have spirit but do not [thoughtlessly] use it.
They identify with the artlessness of the Great Unhewn
and take their stand amid the supremely pure.
Thus,
their sleep is dreamless;30
their wisdom is traceless.
Their corporeal soul does not sink;
their ethereal soul does not soar.31
They repeatedly cycle from end to beginning, and we cannot know their starting and stopping points.
They behold the dwelling place of Total Darkness
and contemplate the lodging place of Total Brightness.
They rest in the realms of the Unfettered
and roam in the fields of the Nebulous.
At rest, they have no appearance.
In place, they have no location.
In movement, they have no form.
In stillness, they have no body.
They are present yet seem to be absent.
They are alive yet seem to be dead.
They emerge from, and enter into, the Dimensionless32
and employ ghostly spirits as their servants.
They plunge into the Fathomless
and enter the Nonexistent.33
In order that their different forms evolve into one another,
Ending and beginning like a circle,
of which no one can trace an outline.
This is how their Quintessential Spirit is able to verge upon the Way; this is the roaming of the Perfected.34 [7/57/10–7/58/3]
If you huff and puff, exhale and inhale,
blow out the old and pull in the new,
practice the Bear Hang, the Bird Stretch,
the Duck Splash, the Ape Leap,
the Owl Gaze, and the Tiger Stare:
This is what is practiced by those who nurture the body.35 They are not the practices of those who polish the mind [e.g., the Perfected]. They make their spirit overflow, without losing its fullness. When, day and night, without injury, they bring the spring to external things,36 they unite with, and give birth to, the seasons in their own minds.
Moreover, there are those who mortify their bodies without harming their minds,
and those who cede their dwelling [i.e., the mind] without diminishing their Quintessence.
The thinking of the leper is not altered;37
the body of the madman not impaired.
But when their spirits eventually make their far-off journey, who will have time to think about what they did [in their lives]? Thus even though the body disappears, the spirit is never transformed. If you use what does not transform in response to transformations, [even through] a thousand alterations and ten thousand evolutions, you will not have begun to reach a limit.
What transforms returns to the Formless;
what does not transform is born together with Heaven and Earth.
A tree dies because its greenness has departed. But can that which gives life to a tree be a tree itself? Analogously, what fills the body is not the body. Thus,
What gives birth to the living never dies,38 yet that to which it gives birth does die.
What transforms things never transforms, yet that which it transforms does transform.
If you take the world lightly, then your spirit will have no attachments.
If you minimize the myriad things, then your mind will not be led astray.
If you equalize death and life, then your mentality will not be fearful.
If you take all alterations and transformations as [being] the same, then your clarity will not be darkened.
The masses take these as empty words, but I take them as my ideal and prove them true. [7/58/3–10]
The reason people find pleasure in ruling is that they can fulfill the desires of their senses and facilitate the ease of their bodies.
Nowadays,
people find tall towers and lofty pavilions beautiful, but Yao did not trim the bark off the rough timber beams [of his house] and did not adorn the columns with capitals.
People find strange rarities and unusual tastes attractive, but Yao ate coarse millet and a simple vegetable soup.
People find elaborate embroidery and white fox fur pleasing, but Yao clothed himself in plain garments and deer pelts to ward off the cold.
His practice of nourishing his nature was to not overlay it by adding great responsibilities and burdening it with grief. Thus his transmitting the world to Shun was like the releasing of a burden from his back. This was not merely a polite offer: he really had no interest in ruling. This was the result of his taking the world lightly.
Yu traveled south to inspect the region and was crossing a river when a yellow dragon picked up his boat on its back. Five other people in the boat were so frightened that their faces kept altering color, but Yu laughed heartily and announced, “I received the Mandate from Heaven. I have exerted all my effort and toiled on behalf of the myriad people. Life is a sojourn; death is a return. How could this disturb my harmony?” He looked upon the dragon as if it were a lizard, [so he was unafraid] and his color did not change. The dragon thereupon hung his ears, picked up his tail, and fled. Yu’s way of regarding [serious] things was to take them lightly, indeed.
A spiritlike shaman from Zheng checked the physiognomy of Huzi Lin, saw the signs [of a short life span], and informed Liezi.39 Liezi ran crying to report this to his teacher. Huzi, balancing Heaven and Earth, remained indifferent to the idea and the reality of it and allowed the dynamism [of the breath] to rise up from his heels.40 From Huzi’s viewpoint, life and death were indeed equal.
Ziqiu had lived for fifty-four years when an injury made him hunchbacked.41 The arch of his spine was higher than his forehead; his chin pressed down on his chest; his two buttocks were on top; his rectum pointed to the sky. He crawled over to peer at himself in a well: “Amazing! That which fashions and transforms us! How has it turned me into this crumpled thing?” This shows that from his viewpoint, alterations and transformation are the same.
Thus,
If we examine the Way of Yao, we thereupon know how light the world is.
If we observe the mentality of Yu, we thereupon know how insubstantial the world is.
If we get to the source of Huzi’s teaching, we thereupon know how equivalent death and life are.
If we see the actions of Ziqiu, we thereupon know how identical alterations and transformations are. [7/58/12–23]
The Perfected
lean on the unbudgeable pillar,
walk on the unblocked road,
draw from the inexhaustible storehouse,
and study with the undying Teacher.
There is nowhere they go that they do not go all the way.
There is nowhere they get to that they do not push on through.
Living is not sufficient to preoccupy their thinking.
Dying is not sufficient to occlude their spirit.
Crouching and stretching, looking up and down, they embrace their life span and delight in its revolutions.
Bad and good fortune, profit and loss,
a thousand alterations and myriad turns:
Which of these is sufficient to disturb their minds?
People like them
embrace simplicity, guard Essence;
like locusts molting and snakes shedding their skin [they leave this world and],
they wander in Vast Clarity.
They lightly rise up and wander alone
and suddenly enter the Obscure.
Even the phoenix cannot be their match, how much less the barn swallow! Power and station, rank and reward, how could these be sufficient to perturb their mentality? [7/58/25–29]
When Yanzi was offered a covenant by Cui Shu, even though he was facing death, he would not change his sense of rightness.42 Zhi and Hua43 were going to fight to the death, and the lord of Ju offered them a large sum of money to stop, but they would not change their conduct. Thus,
Yanzi could be moved by Humaneness but could not be threatened by force of arms.
Zhi and Hua could be halted by Rightness but could not be bound up by profit.
The Superior Man
will die for what is right but cannot be made to pay attention to wealth and honor;
will do what is right but cannot be made to fear threats of death.
People like them act only according to what is right and are not drawn to material things. How much more is this so for those who act through non-action?
Yao did not regard possessing the world as valuable, and thus he was able to hand it down to Shun.
Gongzi Zha44 did not regard possessing a state as honorable, and thus he ceded his position.
Zihan45 did not regard jade as wealth, and thus he would not receive precious objects.
Wu Guang46 did not regard life as worth retaining through forsaking Rightness, and thus he threw himself into the deep.
From this perspective,
supreme honor does not depend on a title;
supreme wealth does not depend on goods.
The world is supremely great, yet it can be given to others.
Your self is very dear, but it can be thrown away in the deep.
Other than these things, there is nothing else worthy of considering beneficial. It is people like them whom we call “without attachments.” People without attachments do not value the world. Above, when they contemplate the discourses of the Perfected, they profoundly trace to the origin the meaning of the Way and its Potency; below, when they examine the customary practices of the age, they find them shameful. Thus if we comprehend the significance of Xu You, the “Metal-Bound Coffer” and the “Leopardskin Quiver” will be set aside.47 Jizi of Yanling would not accept [the rulership of] the state of Wu, and as a result, people who pursued land-boundary lawsuits dropped them.48 Zihan was not interested in a precious jade, and as a result, people who disputed contracts were ashamed. Wu Guang was not corrupted by the attractions of his age, and those who lusted for profit more than life itself were filled with unease.
Thus,
those who do not contemplate the Great Meaning do not understand that life is not worth coveting.
Those who have not listened to the Great Words do not understand that the empire is not worth valuing.
Nowadays in impoverished rural villages, people bang on pots, drum on jars, and sing together, and they take this to be their music. But when they first hear the rhythmic striking of great ceremonial drums and the ringing of the great ceremonial bells, they suddenly feel disappointed and think their pots and jars are shameful. To collect the Odes and the Documents, to cultivate literary studies and yet not know the meaning of the Utmost Discourse [like the Confucians] is like those who bang on pots and drum on jars. To not strive to obtain the empire is the great drum of study.
Honor, position, riches, and profit are what people covet. But tell someone to hold in his left hand a writ for the empire and with his right hand to cut his own throat, and not even a fool would take the latter. From this perspective, life is more valuable than empire. [7/59/1–16]
Sages
eat enough to maintain their vital energy
and wear clothes sufficient to cover their bodies.
They satisfy their genuine responses and do not look for more.
To not possess the empire does not diminish their natures;
to possess the empire does not add to their inner harmony.
Possessing and not possessing the empire are the same reality to them.
If you offer someone the entire granary on Mount Ao
or give them all the water in a river,
were they to eat enough to sate their hunger
and drink enough to quench their thirst,
what would enter their bellies would not exceed a plate of food or a ladle of drink.
So
their bodies would be satisfied, and yet the granary on Mount Ao would not be diminished;
their stomachs would be full, and yet their waters in the river would not be lessened.
To own [these great supplies] would not make their satiation any greater,
and to not own them would not make their hunger any worse.
When we compare this with someone who has his bamboo jars of grain and his own small well, it is the same reality.
When someone is extremely angry, it shatters his yin energy,
and when someone is extremely happy, it collapses his yang energy.
Great sorrow destroys his interior,
and great fear drives him mad.
Yet if you eschew the dust [of daily living] and relinquish attachments, you will be as calm as if you had never left your Ancestor and thereupon will become grandly pervasive.49
Purify your eyes and do not look with them;
still your ears and do not listen with them;
close your mouth and do not speak with it;
relax your mind and do not think with it.
Cast aside clever brilliance and return to Vast Simplicity;
Rest your Quintessential Spirit and cast aside wisdom and precedent.50
Then,
you will be awakened but seem to be obscured;
you will be alive but seem to be dead.
In the end, you will return to the foundation of the time before your birth and form one body with transformations. Then, to you, death and life will be one body. [7/59/16–23]
Now take the example of corvée laborers: they work with shovels and hoes and carry dirt in baskets on their backs until the sweat pours off them and their breathing becomes halting and their throats dry. If they are able to rest for a while beneath a shady tree, they will become relaxed and happy. Yet the profound shade deep within a mountain cave is incomparably better than that found beneath this shady tree.
Take the example of people afflicted with intestinal tumors: they pound their chests, scrunch up their stomachs, hit their heads on their knees, curl up into a ball, and moan all night long without being able to sleep. During this time, if they can get even a moment’s rest, then their parents and brothers will be pleased and happy. Yet the repose of a long night [’s sleep] is incomparably better than this momentary joy.
Thus, if you know the immensity of the cosmos, you will not be concerned about life and death.
If you know the harmony of nourishing vitality, you will not be attached to the world.
If you know the happiness of not yet being born, you will not be afraid of dying.
If you know that to be Xu You is more valuable than Shun, you will not covet things.
A standing wall is better once it topples; how much better if it had never been built.
Ice is better once it melts; how much better if it had never been frozen.51
From Nothing treading into Something; from Something treading into Nothing; from beginning to end there are no traces; and no one knows from whence it springs. Without penetrating the exteriority and the interiority [of the Way], who is able to be without likes and dislikes?
The exterior that has no exterior:
that is supremely grand.
The interior that has no interior:
that is supremely precious.52
If you are able to know the grand and the precious,
where will you go and not reach the end?53 [7/59/25–7/60/4]
Shallow scholars in this declining age do not understand how to get to the origins of their minds and return to their root. They merely sculpt and polish their natures and adorn and stifle their genuine responses in order to interact with their age. Thus,
when their eyes desire something, they forbid it with measures;
when their minds delight in something, they restrict it with rites.
They hasten forth in circles and formally scrape and bow
while the meat goes bad and becomes inedible
and the wine goes sour and becomes undrinkable.
Externally they restrict their bodies;
internally they belabor their minds.
They damage the harmony of yin and yang
and constrain the genuine responses of their nature to fate.
Thus throughout their lives, they are sorrowful people.
Those who penetrate through to the Way are not like this.
They regulate the genuine responses of their natures,
cultivate the techniques of the mind,
nourish these with harmony,
take hold of these through suitability.
They delight in the Way and forget what is lowly;
They find repose in Potency and forget what is base.
Since their natures desire nothing, they attain whatever they desire.
Since their minds delight in nothing, there are no delights in which they do not partake.
Those who do not exceed their genuine responses do not allow them to tie down their Potency.
Those who find ease in their natures do not allow them to injure their inner harmony.
Thus with
their relaxed bodies and untrammeled awareness,
their standards and regulations,
they can become models for the empire. [7/60/6–11]
Nowadays the Confucian literati
do not get to the foundations of why they have desires but instead prohibit what they desire;
do not get to the source of why they delight in things but instead restrict what they enjoy.
This is like breaking open the source of rivers and streams and then damming them up with your hands.
Shepherding the people is like taking care of wild beasts. If you do not lock them up in enclosed pens, they will have savage hearts, but if you bind up their feet in order to prohibit their movement and still wish to raise them through a long life, how is this possible? Now Yan Hui, Ji Lu, Zixia, and Ran Boniu were Confucius’s most brilliant students.54 Still,
Yan Yuan died young;
Ji Lu was pickled in Wey;
Zixia lost his eyesight;
and Ran Boniu became a leper.
These disciples all constrained their natures and stifled their genuine responses and did not attain harmony in their lives. Thus when Zixia met Zengzi,55 sometimes he was thin and sometimes he was fat. Zengzi asked him the reason for this. Zixia replied: “When I went out and saw the delights of wealth and honor, I desired them. But when I returned and saw the Way of the former kings and took pleasure in that, the two feelings fought each other in my mind, and I became thin. But when the Way of the former kings won out, I got fat.”
Based on this, it is not that his will was able to not covet positions of wealth and honor and not appreciate the delights of excess; it was merely that by constraining his nature and restricting his desires [that] he used Rightness to guard against them.
Although their emotions and minds were depressed and gloomy and their bodies and natures were constricted and exhausted, they [i.e., the individuals just named] had no choice but to force themselves [to follow the Confucian Way]. Thus none was able to live out his allotted years.
Contrast these with the Perfected:
They eat exactly what suits their bellies
They wear precisely what fits their forms.
They roam by relaxing their bodies.
They act by matching their genuine responses [to the situation].
If left the empire, they do not covet it,
If entrusted with the myriad things, they do not profit from it.
They rest in the vast universe, roam in the country of the Limitless, ascend Tai Huang, [and] ride Tai Yi.56 They play with Heaven and Earth in the palms of their hands: how is it possible that people like them would grow fat or thin by coveting wealth?
Thus, because the Confucians
are unable to prevent people from desiring, they can only try to stop them from being fulfilled;
because they are unable to prevent people from delighting in things, they can only try to forbid those delights.
They cause the world to fear punishments and not dare to steal, but how can they cause people not to have the intention to steal? [7/60/13–23]
When the people of Yue catch a python, they take it to be quite a [valuable] rarity, but when [the people of] the Middle Kingdom get hold of one, they discard it as useless. Thus,
if he knew something was useless, even a greedy person would be able to give it away.
If he did not know something was useless, even an incorruptible person would not be able to relinquish it to someone else.
Now, the reason that rulers of people
ruin and destroy their states and families,
abandon and renounce their altars to the soil and grain,
lose their lives at the hands of others,
and become the laughingstocks of the world is that they have never not acted selfishly and not desired [for themselves].
The Qiu You tribe coveted the gift of a great bell and lost their state.57
The prince of Yu was obsessed with the jade disk of Chuiji and was captured.58
Duke Xian was bewitched by the beauty of Lady Li and created chaos for four generations.59
Duke Huan was besotted by the harmonious flavors of chef Yi Ya and was not buried in a timely fashion.60
The king of the Hu tribe was debauched by the pleasures of female musicians and so lost his best territories.61
If these five princes62 had matched their genuine responses to the situation and relinquished what they did not really need, if they had taken their inner selves as their standard and not run after external things, how could they have possibly arrived at such disasters?
Thus,
in archery, it is not the arrow that fails to hit the center of the target; it is the one who studies archery who does not guide the arrow.
In charioteering, it is not the reins that fail to make the chariot go; it is the one who studies charioteering who does not use the reins well.63
If you know that a fan in winter and fur clothes in summer have no use to you, then the alterations of the myriad things will be like dust in the wind to you. Thus, if you use hot water to stop something from boiling, the boiling will never stop. But if you really know its root, then all you need to do is put out the fire. [7/60/25–7/61/2]
Translated by Harold D. Roth
1. Laozi 42.
2. The five “orbs” (zang 
) are the spheres of vital energy in the human body.
3. The paired footprints of a person standing in a comfortable stance form approximately a square.
4. Wei 
generally means “make,” but here it has the more technical meaning of “is the same as, in parallel systems.”
5. The sun bird is called a cun wu 
, “hopping crow,” conventionally depicted as having three legs. There are illustrations of these two mythical animals on the funerary banners found at Mawangdui Tombs 1 and 3.
6. Laozi 47. This line also is quoted in 12.46.
7. We follow the interpretation of Kusuyama Haruki, Enanji, in Shinshaku kanbun taikei (Tokyo: Meiji shōin, 1979–1988), 54:328. This is a paraphrase of Laozi 12.
8. This is a paraphrase of Laozi 47.
9. This paragraph is a musing on ZZ 4/9/8ff.
10. This is similar to but more succinct than ZZ 6/17/27–6/18/8.
11. This is similar to ZZ 2/6/28.
12. A Han “foot” (chi 
) was approximately nine English inches long, so “seven feet” here means about five feet, three inches. In 3.31, the “height of an average man” is defined as eight feet (chi ).
13. This parallels ZZ 15/42/3.
14. This poem is also found in ZZ 13/34/27–28 and 15/41/26–27.
15. This is similar to ZZ 15/42/5.
16. The jade half-disk (huang 
) of the Xiahou 
clan was a fabulous jewel that supposedly formed part of the regalia of the ducal house of Lu. See Zuozhuan, Ding 4; and 13.15, 16.90, and 17.2. There is a similar passage in ZZ 15/42/7–8.
17. The temporal nodes (jie 
) are twenty-four divisions of the solar year, each consisting of fifteen days. See 3.18 and app. B. The implication is that sages intuitively understand the right moment to act and the right moment to be still and thus they adapt to the seasons (yinshi 
).
18. These two lines are found in a similar context in ZZ 15/41/27.
19. That is, the hun 
and po 
souls. In Han belief, living humans had two souls: (a) the po, a substantive, earthy, corporeal soul associated with yin that was buried with the body after death and consumed funerary offerings, and (b) the hun, an ethereal soul associated with yang that left the body at the time of death.
20. The locus classicus of these two terms is Laozi 19 and 28, in which they signify conditions of undifferentiated selflessness and desirelessness.
21. This line and the previous six are found almost verbatim in ZZ 12/32/21–22.
22. This parallels ZZ 6/18/21–22 and 19/52/20–21.
23. This parallels ZZ 5/13/12–13.
24. For “obsession and fear,” the text reads literally “negates liver and gall,” but this actually refers to the negative mental states associated with the hepatic and choleric orbs. In the Chinese medical literature, these states are said to be obsession, for the hepatic, and fear, for the choleric. See Grand dictionnaire Ricci de la langue chinoise, 7 vols. (Paris: Institut Ricci, 2001), 6:621. The corresponding phrase in the parallel line, “sensory perceptions,” literally reads “ears and eyes.”
25. The locus classicus for this vivid description of a profound state of tranquillity attained through meditation is ZZ 2/3/14.
26. These three lines parallel ZZ 15/41/26–27.
27. As Lau (HNZ, 57n.10) noted, the text is corrupt here, missing several characters, so this translation is conjectural.
28. These lines parallel ZZ 2/6/17–18.
29. Mao Qiang 
and Xi Shi 
were famed beauties of Yue, credited with having helped bring about the destruction of the state of Wu by distracting King Fuchai (r. 495–477 B.C.E.) with their charms. Their names became emblematic of perfect feminine beauty.
30. The idea that the Perfected sleep without dreaming is found in ZZ 6/16/2 and 15/41/29.
31. According to ancient beliefs, at death the po eventually sank into the ground, and the hun eventually rose into the sky. This text maintains that it is not the case for perfected human beings.
32. This alludes to Laozi 43: “The most flexible in the world can gallop through the most rigid: that which has no substance enters that which has no space.”
33. Following the emendation of Wang Shu-min of wu-jian 
, “the Dimensionless,” to wu-yu 
, “the Nonexistent.” See Lau, HNZ, 58n.1.
34. Following the emendation of Yu Yue to drop “therefore” (gu 
) as an erroneous insertion. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:758.
35. ZZ 15/41/19–20. Some of these positions may be depicted in the chart of the qi cultivation exercises known as “guiding and pulling” (daoyin 
) found at Mawangdui Tomb 3.
36. “When, day and night, without injury, they bring the spring to external things” is quoted almost verbatim from ZZ 5/15/3. The idea seems to be that the Perfected become such powerful generators of vital energies that they can infuse the external world with the vitality of springtime.
37. Reading 
as 
, following the suggestion of Yang Shuda. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 1:761.
38. There is an identical line in ZZ 6/17/15.
39. Liezi 
(also known as Lie Yukou 
[fourth century B.C.E.]) was a Daoist thinker frequently mentioned in the Zhuangzi and other early texts. An extant text bears his name but is widely considered a later forgery. A longer version of this story is found starting at ZZ 7/20/25. In that version, the shaman is made to be the fool, but not here.
40. This passage seems to be alluding to the rising and falling of the breath that is discussed in the earliest source of breath cultivation in China, the “twelve-sided jade cylinder,” dated to the fourth century B.C.E. For details, see Roth 1999, 161–64. Zhuangzi 6 (ZZ 6/16/2–3) also contains the idea that the Perfected breathe from their heels and that in them, the “heavenly dynamism” is deep.
41. This is a shortened and paraphrased version of the story in ZZ 6/17/25–31.
42. Yanzi 
(also known as Yan Ying 
[d. 500 B.C.E.]) was a celebrated minister who served three successive dukes of Qi with great loyalty and dedication. His exploits are chronicled in a text known as the Yanzi chunqiu. Cui Shu murdered Duke Zhuang of Qi and tried to force the Qi feudal lords to make a covenant with him. Yanzi resisted.
43. These are Ji Zhi 
and Hua Huan 
, two grandees of Qi. They fought a suicidal rearguard action to cover the retreat of Duke Zhuang of Qi from his failed attack on Ju 
. The lord of Ju offered them money to surrender, but they refused. This incident occurred in 550 B.C.E. See Zuozhuan, Xiang 23.
44. Gongzi Zha 
was a prince of Wu, the youngest son of King Shoumeng (r. 585–561 B.C.E.). He is celebrated for having refused to displace his elder brother as heir.
45. Zihan 
was an official of the state of Song during the sixth century B.C.E. renowned for his incorruptibility.
46. Wu Guang 
was a righteous hermit who, according to legend, when King Tang (founder of the Shang dynasty) offered to abdicate to him, drowned himself rather than bear the insult.
47. The “Metal-Bound Coffer” (Jin deng) is a chapter in the Documents. The “Leopardskin Quiver” (Bao dao) is a chapter in the Liu Tao.
48. Jizi of Yanling 
is another name of Gongzi Zha. The suing peasants were affected by the example of his detachment from wealth and power.
49. This alludes to the Zhuangzi ’s famous “sitting and forgetting” passage in chap. 6 (ZZ 6/19/21), in which Yan Hui asserts that he “merges with the Great Pervader” (tong yu datong 
).
50. To “cast aside wisdom and precedent” (qi zhigu 
) is a phrase frequently found in syncretic Daoist works. It means that one does not rely on the past wisdom of sages or on the precedents they set (as recorded in such works as the Documents and Spring and Autumn Annals), but on direct experience. This is intended as a contrast with the Confucians. For a discussion of this phrase in early Daoist syncretism, 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. (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Press, 1991), 93–98.
51. This pair of parallel lines emphasizes the value of the pure potential of the Way.
52. When you are merged with the Dao, nothing is outside you: the apparently external is part of your own subjectivity. In addition, your own subjectivity is no longer “inside” you: both subject and object are part of one whole.
53. After having once merged with the Way, when you return to the phenomenal world, you are aware of its “presence” wherever you go.
54. Yan Hui 
(also known as Yan Yuan 
) was Confucius’s most gifted disciple, and his early death deeply saddened the Master.
Ji Lu 
(also known as Zilu 
and Zhong You 
[542–480 B.C.E.]) was a disciple of Confucius. Militarily inclined, he served as steward to the powerful Ji clan.
Zixia 
(also known as Bu Shang 
[b. 507 B.C.E.]) was a disciple of Confucius and traditionally is ascribed a major role in the transmission of the Classics.
Ran Boniu 
was another disciple of Confucius.
55. Zengzi 
(also known as Zeng Can 
[505–435 B.C.E.]) was a prominent disciple of Confucius mentioned in many early texts. A text attributed to him once circulated but exists now only in fragments.
56. Tai Huang 
(Great Sovereign) and Tai Yi 
(Grand One or Primal Unity) are constellations.
57. The Qiu You were a tribe of northern “barbarians” who were given the gift of a great bell by Earl Zhi. But in order to bring it home, they had to build a road, which provided a convenient path for Earl Zhi to invade and conquer them. A passage similar to this line and the following three lines appears in 9.25.
58. The prince of Yu sold the right of passage across his territory for a rare jade disk of Chuiji, and this route was later used by the state of Jin to conquer him. See Zhu zhuan, Xi 2. See also 10.47, 11.7, 17.57, and 18.5.
59. Duke Xian of Jin (r. 676–651 B.C.E.) had his own heir killed in order to replace him with the son he had fathered with the “barbarian” Lady Li Ji, and the struggle for title to the throne lasted for four generations.
60. Duke Huan of Qi 
(r. 685–643 B.C.E.) was one of the most powerful rulers of the Spring and Autumn period. He was the first to hold the post of hegemon and employed the famous statesman Guan Zhong as his prime minister. He is said to have been so taken with Yi Ya’s cuisine that he gave him many favors. Thus when the duke died, Yi Ya was powerful enough to fight for several months for the throne against the duke’s heirs. Because of this, no one had time to bury the duke.
61. The king of the Hu, a Western tribe, was so taken by the allures of dancers and singers that he totally neglected his defenses and lost a great deal of territory to Duke Mu of Qin. See Claude Larre, “Les Esprits légers et subtils,” in Les Grands Traités du Huainanzi, vol. 75, Variétés sinologiques, ed. Claude Larre, Isabelle Robinet, and Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée (Paris: Institut Ricci, 1993), 102n.30.
62. Three of these anecdotes are recounted again in 9.25.
63. A somewhat similar statement appears in 9.10.