{98} CHAPTER TWELVE

Heaven and Earth

Though heaven and earth are vast, their transformations reach everywhere evenly. Though the ten thousand things are many, their ordering is everywhere one. Though the people are multitudinous, what governs them one and all is true rulership. True rulership begins in the intrinsic virtuosities and reaches completion in the Heavenly. Thus it is said that in the dimmest antiquity, rulership of the world was accomplished simply through non-doing.¹ That means relying only on the Heavenly and on the intrinsic virtuosities, nothing more.

Contemplating the meaning of the word in this manner, via the Course, all the world’s “rulership” may be put right. Contemplating their role-divisions via the Course, the responsibilities of all lords and servants of the world may be clarified. Contemplating their abilities via the Course, all the officials of the world may be properly ordered. Contemplating everything everywhere via the Course is thus to be fully equipped with responses to all things.

Hence the intrinsic virtuosities are what can bring unobstructed success everywhere between Heaven and Earth, and the Course is what proceeds through all the ten thousand things. A person in power must rule his people by assigning the right tasks to them, and their skills must be developed by allowing their own abilities to attain real artistry in these tasks. Their skills must be integrated into the tasks; the execution of their tasks must be integrated into each fulfilling his responsibilities; the fulfillment of responsibility must be integrated into the intrinsic virtuosities; the intrinsic virtuosities must be integrated into the Course; and the Course must integrated into the Heavenly. Thus it is said, “Here is how the ancients tamed the world: having no desires, all in the world had all they needed. Non-doing, all in the world was transformed. Being still as an abyss, all the people settled into stability.” As the Record says, “Penetrating to the one continuity, all the myriad tasks are completed. Free of any intention for gain, attaining only freedom from any intention,^A all the ghosts and spirits yield.”

The Master said, “The Course is what covers and carries all things—how vast it is, vast like an ocean! The noble person must gouge out his entire heart and mind to make space for it! The doings of non-doing: that is what is meant by the Heavenly. {99} The various expressions of non-doing: that is what is meant by the intrinsic virtuosities. Cherishing other people and creating benefit for all beings: that is what is meant by humankindness. Seeing commonalities in what is different: that is what is meant by vastness. Proceeding in one’s deeds without embanking oneself against what is different: that is what is meant by capaciousness. Possession of all the ten thousand differences:² that is what is meant by wealth. Thus, holding fast to one’s intrinsic virtuosities is called maintaining the strand, and bringing them to completion is called taking one’s place in the world. Following the Course is called lacking nothing, and not letting external things blunt one’s aspiration is called being undamaged.

“When noble people are clear on these ten things, how encompassing they are in their service to the vastness of their own minds! How fluid and fecund they are, being the passing on of all things! Such people leave the gold hidden in the mountains, leave the pearls hidden in the depths of the sea, see no profit in goods and riches, stay away from rank and wealth. Taking no joy in long life and finding no sorrow in early death, they feel no glory in success and no shame in failure. Forgetting both long life and early death, success and failure are to them not even worth mentioning. They do not try to snap up all the profits of the era as their private share, or to exert sovereignty over the world as a way to reach a position of shining prominence. What shines for them is rather to understand that all things comprise a single treasury, that life and death comprise a single shape.”

The Master said, “The Course: what an abyss is its every dwelling place, and yet how limpid is its clarity! If metal and stone did not partake of it, they would have no way to ring out their sounds. Hence metal and stone, though they are equipped with sounds, do not ring out unless struck. And of all the ten thousand things, what could affix the Course to any one definite place?

“As for one with the intrinsic virtuosity of a king, all he does is go his way in plainness and simplicity; he would be ashamed to have full understanding of his own doings. Rather, he roots them all in the source and connects his understanding only to the imponderable. Thus his intrinsic virtuosities become expansive, and whenever his mind goes forth, it gathers some further thing in.³ Without the Course, the body cannot live, and without its intrinsic virtuosities, the life in it cannot shine forth. Someone who can maintain his body, fully develop the life in him, firmly establish his intrinsic virtuosities and make manifest the Course—is he not a person of kingly virtuosity? Vastly he gushes forth, and yet all things follow along with him in his every sudden emergence and surging action. Such is what is called a person of kingly virtuosity. He peers into the darkest dark, he listens where there is no sound. Within the darkest dark alone he sees daybreak. Within the soundless alone he hears harmony. Thus even in the depths below the deep, he can discern a something definitely present, and even in the more imponderable {100} than the imponderable, he can discern a certain subtle quintessence. Hence, in his contact with all things, though utterly lacking anything to give, he somehow provides what they seek, and though galloping forth on the instant, he somehow tracks where they are coming from, providing something for each and all—large or small, long or short, far or near.”^B

The Yellow Emperor traveled north of the Red Waters, where he ascended the slopes of Mt. Kunlun to cast his gaze over all the south. When he returned home he discovered he had lost his Dark Pearl there. He sent Knowinghood⁴ to search for it, but Knowinghood could not find it. He sent Li Zhu the Clear-sighted to search for it, but Li Zhu could not find it. He sent Insulted⁵ the Eloquent to search for it, but Insulted could not find it. Then he sent Imageless,⁶ and Imageless found it. The Yellow Emperor exclaimed, “How strange! Imageless is the one who was able to find it!”

The teacher of Yao was Xu You, whose teacher was Gnawgap, whose teacher was Baby Sovereign, whose teacher was Pajama. Yao asked Xu You, “Gnawgap can be taken as a counterpart of Heaven itself, can’t he? Through Baby Sovereign, I have invited him to come meet with me.”⁷

Xu You said, “Danger! This will be a hazard to the whole world! Gnawgap is the kind of person who is clear-sighted and sharp-eared, astute and wise, and because he is so perceptive, he is always quick and nimble of mind. He was born with natural endowments that surpass others, but as a consequence he tries to take possession of the Heavenly through the human.⁸ He is very astute about prohibiting wrongdoing, but has no understanding of what produces the wrongdoing in the first place. Would you allow him to serve as a counterpart of Heaven? He would try first to depend on the human without the Heavenly, then would root everything in the personal self while disidentifying with the physical body, then would honor conscious knowledge and let it spread like wildfire, then would make himself a cause at the beginning of every thread, then would become the cord that binds all things together, then would elicit a response wherever he looks, then would respond as appropriate to everything, and then would transform along with things without any constancy. So how could he be sufficient to be a counterpart of Heaven? Nevertheless, just as there are various branches of a family coming from a common ancestor, perhaps such a person could serve as a father to all the people. But he definitely could not be the father to the father to all the peoples! {101} For he is the kind of leader who produces disorder through his very governing—a calamity to those who serve him and a thief to those who rule him.”

Yao was taking in the sights at Hua. The border warden there said, “Wow! A sage! Let me bless the sage! May the sage have long life!”

Yao said, “I decline.”

“May the sage have wealth!”

Yao said, “I decline.”

“May the sage have many sons!”

Yao said, “I decline.”

The warden said, “Long life, wealth, and many sons are what all people want. Why do you alone have no desire for them?”

Yao said, “Many sons bring many fears. Wealth brings many worries. Long life brings many humiliations. These three things do not nourish one’s intrinsic virtuosities. Therefore I must decline.”

The warden said, “At first I took you for a sage, but now I see you are merely a noble man. Heaven in generating the people always gives them some vocation. With many sons each given his own vocation, what would you have to fear? If you had wealth but shared it with others, what worries would you have? A sage dwells like a quail and eats like a hatchling,⁹ passing by like a flying bird that leaves no trail behind. When the empire proceeds along the Course, he joins in the shared prosperity. When it does not, he cultivates his intrinsic virtuosities at his leisure. After a thousand years he gets bored with the world and thus leaves it behind, ascending with the immortals, riding upon those white clouds up to God’s own ancestral village. Those three problems never reach him, for his own person remains ever free from misfortunes—what humiliations could he have?”

The warden then turned to go. Yao followed after him, imploring, “Please, tell me more!” But the warden said, “Away with you already.”

When Yao was ruling the world, he elevated Sir Lofty the Total Unk to the position of feudal lord. But then Yao passed the throne on to Shun, and Shun passed it on to Yu. When that happened, Sir Lofty abdicated his position as feudal lord and went back home to till his land. Emperor Yu went to see him and found him plowing in the open fields. Yu hurried toward him, bowing low in submission, then stood and asked, “In the past when Yao was ruling the world, you, my master, took your place as a feudal lord. Then Yao gave the throne to Shun and Shun gave it to me, and my master then resigned his post and came home to plow his land. May I venture to ask the reason for this?”

Sir Lofty said, “Back when Yao ruled the world, the people were encouraged even without rewards, and stood in awe even without penalties. Now you employ penalties and rewards, and the people have become inhumane. From there the efficacy of their intrinsic virtuosity decays and even corporal punishments come {102} into use. The chaos to come in future times begins from this. Get out of here, why don’t you? Do not disturb my work!” And he continued with his vigorous plowing, never looking back.

In the great beginning, what there was was nothing—devoid of definite being, unnameable by any name. There arose from this continuity a unity but without yet any definite form. Accessing this, making it their own, things come to life; their appropriation of it is what is known as their intrinsic virtuosities. When definite shapes have not yet emerged, but in the undivided continuity certain tentatively distinct portions appear, this is called their individual allotments of life. As motion that also stays and maintains itself, distinct living beings emerge, and when these beings become complete, each producing its own distinct structural coherence, this is called their physical bodies. Those physical bodies become protective preservers of imponderable spirit, in each case with its own specific styles and laws, which we call their specific inborn natures.

When the inborn nature is cultivated, it can be brought back to the intrinsic virtuosity until it becomes just as it was in the beginning. Being the same as it was, it is open like space, and being open like space, it is vast, joining in the chirpings of all beaks. When one joins in the chirpings of all beaks, it is with all of heaven and earth that one has joined. This joining is a merging into oblivion, as if stupid, as if swooning. This is called the Obscure Virtuosity,¹⁰ none other than the Vast Accord.

The Master asked Lao Dan, “There are some people who try to order¹¹ the Course, as if it were a matter of banishing something or someone: affirming and denying, accepting and rejecting.¹² The debaters have a saying: ‘Divide hard and white sharply and clearly, so they stand out as if hanging in empty space like cornered eaves.’ Can such people be called sages?”

Lao Dan said, “These are petty officials or diviners bound to their craft, laboring their bodies and terrorizing their minds, as the rat-catching of dogs brings on the leashes that bind them,^C and the grace of monkeys brings them down as captives from the mountain forests. Qiu,¹³ I will tell you something that you have never yet been able to hear, let alone speak. Even among those who are physically intact from head to toe, those who really have the ears to hear it, who have the hearts and minds for it, are already very few. But as to those with physical form who manage also to maintain coexistence with that which has no shape and no form—there is no one there at all. Our own motions and stoppings, our deaths {103} and our lives, our falls and our arisings—even these are never done by ourselves! As long as there is any ‘ordering of it,’ it is still entirely confined to the human. To forget all about external things and forget all about Heaven is what is called forgetting the self—and it is forgetting the self that is called really entering into the Heavenly.”

General Gateway Sprout^D went to see Seasonal Breakthrough, and said, “The ruler of Lu addressed me, saying, ‘I request to receive instruction from you.’ I declined, since it had not been commanded. But afterward I did tell him something. I’m not sure if it was correct or not, so I’d like to try repeating it to you. I told the Lord of Lu, ‘You must be respectful and restrained, selecting and promoting the public-spirited and conscientious among the people without the slightest partiality. Then who among the people would dare not to cooperate with you?’”

Seasonal Breakthrough burst out laughing and said, “As a description of the intrinsic virtuosities of a true emperor or king, sir, your words are like a praying mantis flailing its arms madly to stop an oncoming carriage—ridiculously inadequate to the task! If he did try to do as you instructed, he would be as if putting himself at a precarious height, as if loading his observation towers with all sorts of valuable goods. Many would then be those plodding toward him, flocking in his direction.”

“Your words leave me in a daze, sir!” said General Gateway Sprout, alarmed and astonished. “Even so, I beg you to at least tell me something about the general meaning.”

Seasonal Breakthrough said, “A great sage’s way of ‘ordering’ the world is to shake up and scatter the minds of the people, making that a source of instruction that alters all their customary ways. The thievery of their hearts is thus extinguished, enabling each to advance his or her own unique aspirations. He just accords with the spontaneous action of each one’s own inborn nature, so much so that the people do not even know where it comes from or what makes it so. How could such a one be willing to look up as if to an elder brother to the way Yao and Shun instructed the people, or conversely look down on them as younger brothers swirling in the dark of his dregs? It is only where one’s desires are the same as one’s intrinsic virtuosities that the heart and the mind find their home.”¹⁴

Zigong had traveled south to Chu and was passing over the northern bank of the Han River on his way back to Jin when he saw an old man working on his vegetable garden. The man had dug tunnels that led into the well, and was bearing jars of water to pour into them, exerting himself mightily but accomplishing very little. Zigong said to him, “There is a machine for this, which can irrigate one hundred plots of earth in a single day. It produces enormous results with very little effort. Wouldn’t you like to have one, sir?”

The gardener looked up at him and said, “How does it work?”

{104} Zigong said, “A piece of wood is carved into a lever, heavy in the back and light in the front, which raises the water as if hand-pulled, as quick and abundant as if it were boiling over. It is called a well-sweep.”

The gardener’s face showed some anger, but then he smiled and said, “I have heard my teacher say, ‘Where there are clever machines, there will necessarily be clever machinations, and where there are clever machinations, there will necessarily be mechanical hearts and minds.’ Once the mechanical heart is lodged in your breast, purity and simplicity are no longer complete in you. When purity and simplicity are no longer complete, the imponderable spirit and life in you will become unsettled. When the spirit and life in you are unsettled, the Course cannot carry or be carried^E by them.’ It’s not that I didn’t know about this thing: it’s that I would be ashamed to use it.”

Zigong squinted at the man, then lowered his head in shame, making no reply. After a while, the gardener said, “Who are you, sir?”

“A disciple of Kong Qiu,”¹⁵ said Zigong.

The gardener said, “Oh—are you then not one of those who studies broadly so as to imitate the sages, sighing out a lot of nonsense to deceive the crowds, plucking your zither strings and singing your melancholy dirges in solitude to sell your name to the world? If you would just forget all about your spirit and vital energy and let your bodily form fall away, then you might be all right! You cannot even order your own body—what leisure do you have to order the world? Away with you! Don’t impede my work!”

Zigong, embarrassed to the point of losing his composure, looking very anxious and not knowing what to do with himself, traveled on another thirty miles before he started to feel better. His disciple then asked him, “Who was that man earlier? Why did you look so crestfallen and discomfited when you saw him, unable to recover all day?”

Zigong said, “I used to think there was only one really human person in the world.¹⁶ I didn’t know that there was also this man. I have learned from my master that in doing tasks one should seek approval and in doing work one should seek results, that it is the way of the sage to accomplish much with little effort. But this man alone says no. One who holds to the Course keeps his intrinsic virtuosities whole, and when these are whole, the body is also whole, and thus the imponderable spirit is also whole. The wholeness of the spirit is the way of the sage. That means to throw your life in with the ordinary people, moving together with them and never knowing where you’re going. So complete in obliviousness, in purity! Accomplishment, profit, machinations, skill—all these are forgotten in this man’s mind. This man does not go where he has no will to go, does not do what he has no mind to do. Though all in the world may praise him, getting exactly what he means, he would disregard it without a second thought. Though all the world may blame him, not getting what he means, he would obliviously ignore it. Neither {105} praise nor blame can add to or subtract from him in the least. This is what is called a person whose intrinsic virtuosities are whole and intact! As for me, I am just someone tossed about on the wind and waves.”

When they returned to Lu, he told the story to Confucius. But Confucius said, “That guy is just a bogus practitioner of the arts of Mr. Chaotic Blob. He knows their oneness, but does not know their twoness; he knows the first step but not the second step.^F He orders what is internal but does not order what is external. But to shine with pure white light to the point of entering the primal plainness, non-doing to the point of returning to the unhewn, embodying the inborn nature to the point of clasping the imponderable spirit to oneself, but thereby playing one’s way through the vulgar everyday world—that would really be something worth being astonished over! As for the actual arts of Mr. Chaotic Blob, how could either you or I be in any position to recognize such things?”

Earnest Daze was heading eastward toward the Great Chasm when he ran into Garden Breeze on the shore of the Eastern Sea. Garden Breeze asked, “Where are you going?

Earnest Daze answered, “I am going to the Great Chasm.”

“What will you do there?”

“The Great Chasm is something that can be poured into without ever being filled, ladled from without ever running dry.¹⁷ I’m going to play around in that.”

Garden Breeze said, “Do you have no concerns about the ordinary people, all the normal multitude of ordinary folk with their two eyes set side by side? I’d like to hear you speak about sagely government.”

Earnest Daze said, “Sagely government? Allot posts according to fitness, give promotions according to ability. Know thoroughly each man’s disposition and deeds and allow him to do what he does well. Then all will act and speak spontaneously from what is in themselves, and yet everyone in the empire will be transformed. Then with even a flick of the hand or a tilt of the face from you, all the people from the four directions are sure to come to you. This is what is called sagely government.”

“I’d like to hear about the overall virtuoso.”

“An overall virtuoso is someone who dwells without thought, moves without calculation, harbors no ideas of right and wrong or beautiful and ugly. Benefitting all within the four seas is his only pleasure. Providing for everyone is his only peace. How sorrowful he seems, like an infant who has lost his mother! How bewildered, like a traveler who has lost his way! He has more than enough wealth for his own use but doesn’t know where it has come from. He has enough to eat and drink, but doesn’t know how he got it. Such is the appearance of a virtuoso.”

“I would like to hear about the Spirit Man.”

{106} “Mounting the imponderable spirit and riding on the radiance, together with his own physical body he is completely obliterated and gone.¹⁸ This is precisely how he shines broadly on all things, fully developing his own allotment of life and fully realizing his own dispositions. Joy then comes to heaven and earth and all cares dissolve away completely. All things then return to their own true dispositions. This is called Vanishing into the Chaos.”

Ghostless Gate and Redspread Fullproof were observing the troops of King Wu when the latter said, “He is certainly no match for that man of the Yu clan.¹⁹ That is why he has encountered this trouble.”

Ghostless Gate asked, “Was everything in the empire already well ordered when that man of the Yu clan came to order it? Or was it after it was in disarray that he ordered it?”

Redspread Fullproof said, “If your hope is to order everything in the empire, the man like that of the Yu clan is not even worth considering. That man applied medicine to wounds as if offering a wig to a bald man, doctoring when the sick come demanding it, a ‘filial son’ out picking medicinal herbs to repair the health of his ‘adoring father,’ looking miserable all the while—that is something a real sage would be ashamed to do. In the age of the full realization of the intrinsic virtuosities, the worthy are not esteemed and the able are not employed. Those above are like the upper branches of a tree, and the ordinary people are like wild deer below. They are upright and proper without knowing it is ‘responsible conduct,’ love and care for one another without knowing it is ‘humankindness,’ are true without knowing it is ‘loyalty,’ reliable without knowing it is ‘trustworthiness.’ They have effects on one another just by obliviously wriggling around, never considering themselves to be doing anyone any favors. Thus they go their ways but leave no trace, doing their deeds but leaving no record.”

Filial children who do not flatter their parents and loyal ministers who are not sycophantic to their rulers are the greatest of ministers and children. When a child agrees with everything his parents say and approves of everything they do, even common opinion calls him an inferior child. When a minister agrees with everything a ruler says and approves of all his actions, even common opinion calls him an inferior minister. But they do not understand that the same should be applied in all such cases, should apply to common opinion itself! For when a person affirms as true whatever common opinion affirms as true and approves as good whatever common opinion approves as good, common opinion somehow fails to call that person a sycophant and a flatterer. Does that mean that common opinion is of greater dignity than any parent and more to be respected than any ruler? Call a man a flatterer and he flushes with anger; call him a sycophant and he boils with rage—and yet he remains a sycophant and a flatterer to the end of his days, weaving metaphors and embellishing figures of speech so as to gather a crowd, never {107} offending them from beginning to end, from root to branch. He dresses in his hanging robes, displaying his fine colors, adjusting his appearance and expression, trying to win the favor of the whole world—how is it that he does not call himself a sycophant and a flatterer?

To follow others, going along with their ideas of right and wrong, and yet claim not to be one of the crowd—that is the height of foolishness. But someone who knows he is a fool is not the biggest fool, just as someone who knows he is confused is not so greatly confused. The greatly confused are those who will never get free of confusion to the end of their days, and the biggest fools are those who never become aware of their foolishness. When three people are walking together and one of them is lost, they can still reach their destination. This is a small confusion. But if two of them are lost, they will just exhaust themselves without ever getting anywhere, because the majority are confused. At the present time, the whole world is confused, and though I may earnestly wish and pray otherwise, it would do no good. Is it not tragic?

Great music makes no impression on the ears of villagers, but play them “Snap the Willow” or “The Magnificent Flowers” and they will light up with pleasure. Thus it is that lofty speech finds no quarter in the minds of the mass of men, and in the end the utmost speech is no longer even spoken: vulgar conventional speech finally wins out. Because of the clanging of two earthenware pots, the fine tone of a single bronze bell is drowned out, and so we will never get where we are trying to go. Just so is the whole world now drowning in confusion, and though I may fervently wish and pray otherwise, how could that do any good? To know that it does no good and yet still insist on doing it—that would be just adding one additional confusion. It is better to let it go and push no more. So I shall push no more. For to what was that lament of mine comparable? To a leper woman who gives birth in the middle of the night, hurrying in great agitation to find a torch so she can take a look at the newborn, fearing only that it might resemble herself.^G

When a hundred-year-old tree is chopped apart to make ritual vessels and painted in lovely greens and yellows, the detritus is thrown in a ditch. If you compare the ritual vessel with the detritus in the ditch, they undoubtedly differ in terms of their beauty and ugliness; but they are alike in having lost their inborn nature. Robber Zhi and men like Zeng Shen and Shi Yu undoubtedly differ in the righteousness of their conduct,²⁰ but they are equal in having lost their inborn nature.

There are five ways to thus lose one’s inborn nature. First, the five esteemed colors mess up the eyes so that they can no longer see well. Second, the five esteemed tones mess up the ears so that they can no longer hear well. Third, the five esteemed fragrances infiltrate the nose, besieging and irritating the brow. Fourth, the five esteemed flavors sully the mouth, diseasing and impairing it. Fifth, preferences and dislikes unsettle the heart and mind, making the inborn nature flighty and unstable. All these five things are harmful to the life in us.

{108} So what the Yangist and Mohists think they have attained, setting themselves apart and straining as if on tiptoe, is not what I call attainment. When what they have attained is only their own confinement, can that be called an attainment? If so, we may say that a caged dove or owl has also attained something. Their likes and dislikes of external sights and sounds make woodchips, detritus, of what is internal to them, while externally they constrain their bodies with their leather caps, their feathered bonnets, their tablets of authority and their long ritual girdles. Thus they become inwardly stuffed full with their confining barricades of these woodchips, while outwardly they are bound by heavy cords, and yet there they are, bound up in their cords all bright-eyed and cheery, thinking they have achieved something great. If so, then criminals with chained arms or manacled fingers, or tigers and leopards caught in sacks and cages, can also be said to have really achieved something great!

ENDNOTES

A. A double translation. See “Notes on the Translation.”

B. Replacing 修 with 近, as Wang Yu reports appears in one manuscript version, and adding to the end of this phrase the characters 各有所具, as in the parallel passage in Huainanzi, “Yuandaopian.”

C. Reading 成思 as a garbling of 來累, as suggested by Sun Yirang, hence as isomorphic with the parallel passage in Chapter 7 (p. 69).

D. Following those manuscripts that have wen 莬 for mian 葂.

E. A double translation. See “Notes on the Translation.”

F. A double translation. See “Notes on the Translation.”

G. Following the interpretation of Xuan Ying: my pushing to end confusion is one more confusion, so I am just afraid that the world is like myself, confused and controlling—just as the leper’s only fear is that her child is also a leper.

¹. Wuwei. see Glossary.

². Wanbutong 萬不同. The identical phrase appears in Chapter 2 to describe what is blown through by “the piping of Heaven,” p. 11.

³. Alternately, “… his mind goes forth only when some external thing takes hold of it.”

⁴. Zhi 知, personified here as in the opening story of Chapter 22.

⁵. Chigou 喫詬, literally “eat insult.” Translated in keeping with the names given to the other fanciful personifications in this passage. Generally taken as a representative of dispute and argument.

⁶. Xiangwang 象罔.

⁷. Presumably, to ask him to become emperor in Yao’s place.

⁸. I.e., he uses his superior human endowments (received from the undeliberate activity of Heaven) to deliberately grasp the Heavenly.

⁹. That is, according to Zhu Boxiu, has no fixed dwelling and takes whatever food is given by the mother.

¹⁰. 玄德 Xuande. Cf. Daodejing 10, 51, 65.

¹¹. 治 Zhi. To work on or treat something; the same word is used to mean “to order” or “to govern” in the political sense, as is rejected in the opening trope of Chapter 11. But the term zhidao is general usage for working on or practicing a particular course. Cf. Chapter 16, p. 131.

¹². Or, “They make acceptable what is unacceptable, they affirm as so what is not so.”

¹³. The personal given name of Confucius.

¹⁴. Following the interpretation of Lu Xixing. Alternately, “What he desires is only to be in full consonance with his intrinsic virtuosity and make his home there.”

¹⁵. I.e., Confucius.

¹⁶. I.e., his teacher Confucius.

¹⁷. The same phrase appears verbatim in Chapter 2, describing the knowledge of the Course that is not a course, p. 18.

¹⁸. Sic.

¹⁹. The sage-emperor Shun.

²⁰. Yi. Elsewhere translated as “responsible conduct,” “responsibility,” “duty,” “justice.” see Glossary.