{229} CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Yielding Sovereignty

Yao had tried to yield the empire to Xu You, who refused to accept it. Then he went off to try giving it to Zizhou Zhifu instead. The latter said, “You want to make me the emperor, hmm, yes, that seems like it would probably be all right. But right now I happen to be afflicted with an obscure but worrisome illness, and I have to deal with managing that, so I have no time to manage the empire.”

The empire is supremely important, and yet this man would not harm his own life with it, not to mention the lives of other beings. Indeed, the empire should only be entrusted to the kind of person who would have no use for it.

Emperor Shun in his day also tried to yield the empire to this man, Zizhou Zhibo,¹ and again he said, “I happen to be afflicted with an obscure but worrisome illness, so I have no time to manage the world.” The empire is the vastest of vessels, but this man would not exchange his life for it. This shows how much a person who has found the Course differs from ordinary conventional people.

Shun later offered to yield the empire to Shan Juan. Shan Juan said, “I stand in the midst of the continuum of all spaces and times, wrapped in hides and furs in the winter and in hemp and straw in the summer. In the spring I plow and plant, as long as my body is able to work, and in the autumn I gather in the harvest, which gives me enough to rest and feed my body. When the sun comes out I work, when the sun goes down I rest. Thus far-flung and unfettered do I live between heaven and earth, my heart and mind content with themselves. What use would I have for an empire? Pathetic! You really do not understand me at all!”

Thus did he reject the offer. And then he departed and went to live somewhere deep in the mountains, no one knows where.

Shun went to yield the empire to his friend, a farmer of Youhu. The farmer said, “You’re all coiled up, your majesty!² Here is a distinguished man who really conserves his strength!”—showing that he regarded Shun’s intrinsic virtuosity as not {230} yet fully realized. The farmer then took his whole family off to sea, with just what the husband could carry on his back and the wife could carry on her head, holding the hands of their children, never to return.

When King Danfu the Great³ was dwelling in Bin, the wild Di tribes of the north attacked him. He offered then skins and silks, but they would not accept. He then offered them dogs and horses, and then pearls and jades, but they would not accept any of those either. What the Di tribes wanted was territory. King Danfu then said, “After dwelling together with a person, how could I bear to then slaughter his younger brothers and sons? My children, work hard to remain here! What difference is there between being ruled by me and being ruled by the Di? For I have somewhere been told that those whom one should nourish should not be harmed on account of that which should nourish them.” Then he picked up his staff and riding crop and departed. But the people stuck close to him and followed, establishing a new state around him at the foot of Mount Qi.

King Danfu the Great may be called someone who was really able to honor life. People who are really able to honor life will not use its sustenance to harm their bodies, however rich or high-ranking they may be, and will not put their bodies into bondage for the sake of profit, however poor or low-ranking they may be. But nowadays those who occupy high offices and honored rank think renouncing these things would be a very heavy loss. Their eyes fixed on profit, they carelessly destroy themselves. Are they not confused?

The people of Yue killed three of their rulers in succession. Fearing they would do the same to him, Prince Sou fled to Cinnabar Cave, leaving them without a ruler. They went looking for him everywhere, finally tracking him down there. When he refused their efforts to lure him out, they smoked him out with moxa and then forced him to mount the royal chariot. As he took hold of the strap to climb aboard, the prince looked up to the sky and called out, “Ruler! Ruler! Could I not have been spared such a thing?” Prince Sou did not hate ruling as such, but he hated the troubles that are inseparable from ruling. Prince Sou can be considered someone who would not harm the life in himself for the sake of a state. And this was exactly why the people of Yue wanted so badly to have him as their ruler.

The state of Han and the state of Wei were in a conflict over some contested territory. Zihuazi went to see the Marquis Zhaoxi of Han and found him looking quite distraught. Zihuazi said, “What if all the states in the world were to come before you with a signed edict saying, ‘If anyone grabs hold of this with his left hand, his right hand will be removed, and if anyone grabs hold of it with his right hand, his left hand will be removed. But whoever does grab hold of it will be given possession of the empire.’ Could you then bring yourself to grab hold of it?”

{231} Marquis Zhaoxi said, “I could not.”

Zihuazi said, “Excellent! From this it is obvious that your two hands are worth more to you than the empire. But your entire body is surely worth more than your two hands, and the state of Han is worth less than the whole empire. And the small piece of territory you are now contending over is certainly worth less than even the state of Han. You, my lord, certainly care about your body; so it can’t be right for you to harm the life in you with this worry and sorrow!”

Marquis Zhaoxi said, “Excellent! Many have instructed me before, but I have never before heard such words!” Indeed, Zihuazi may be considered someone who knew what does and what doesn’t matter.

The ruler of Lu heard that Yan He was someone who had attained the Course, and so he sent a messenger with a gift of silks as an overture to arrange a meeting. Yan He was puttering around outside the door of his shabby residence, wearing a coarse hempen garment and feeding his cows by hand. The messenger from Lu arrived at the gate and asked him, “Is this the home of Yan He?”

Yan He said, “Yes, this is his home.”

The messenger presented the silks. Yan He said, “I am afraid you have misunderstood your orders, and will be blamed by him who sent you. You had better look into the matter and confirm it.” The messenger then went back and confirmed his orders, but when he returned looking for Yan He, Yan He could no longer be found. For men like Yan He truly abhor riches and honors.

Thus it is said, “The genuineness of the Course applies only to the management of the person himself, to taking care of one’s own body. Only whatever is left over after that may be used for the local community and the family, while whatever dust and chaff are further left after that may be used to govern the empire.” From this it can be seen that the accomplishments of emperors and kings are just the leftover deeds of the sages, not that by which they keep their bodies undamaged and nourish the life in them. But most of the conventional “noble men” of the present day just endanger their bodies and abandon the life in them, martyring themselves to external things. Is it not sad? Whenever a sage is to make a move toward something, he always scrutinizes what must be used to get there as contrasted to what he’s going there for. Now imagine someone who would use a precious pearl like that which belonged to the Marquis of Sui to shoot at a sparrow a thousand yards away. Surely everyone would laugh at him. And why is that? Because what he is using up to try to get something is worth more than what he is trying to get. And is not the life within us worth more than the pearl of Marquis Sui?

Master Liezi⁴ had fallen into extreme poverty, to the point where his hunger showed itself on his face. A visitor mentioned it to Ziyang of Zheng, saying, “Lie Yukou is what you might call a distinguished man who has the Course. Now what {232} is the reason that a distinguished man who has the Course dwells in your land, my lord, and yet has been allowed to fall into such extreme poverty? Can it be that my lord has no liking for distinguished men?”

Ziyang then immediately ordered an officer to send a gift of grain to Liezi. Liezi welcomed the messenger, but then bowed twice and declined the gift. The messenger departed and Liezi went back into his house. His wife glared at him and pounded her breast with her fist, saying, “I was told that to be the wife of a man of the Course would be a life of ease and joy. But here we are, the starvation showing on our faces. The ruler was in error, but now he has sent food to you to correct it, and yet you refuse it. Alas, that such must be my fate!”

Liezi laughed and said, “The ruler does not know me personally. He has sent this grain to me on the basis of what someone else has told him about me. So if someone else were to speak ill of me, he would perhaps also go by that person’s words. That’s why I didn’t accept the gift.”

As it happens, the people later rebelled against Ziyang of Zheng and put him to death.

King Zhao of Chu lost his kingdom and Yue the sheep butcher was among those who fled with him into exile. When King Zhao returned to his kingdom in triumph, he wanted to reward those who had been loyal to him in his exile. When they came to Yue, the butcher said, “When his majesty lost his kingdom, I lost my butcher stall. Now that his majesty has recovered his kingdom, I have recovered my butcher stall. My income and rank have already been recovered; what is this talk of further reward?”

When this response was reported to the king, he said, “Make him take it.”

But when they tried to do that, Yue said, “When his majesty lost his kingdom, it was not my fault, and therefore I did not dare to accept any punishment for it. Now that his majesty has recovered his kingdom, it is likewise not due to any merit of mine, so I dare not present myself as worthy of reward for it.”

The king, when told of this, said, “Bring him here to see me.”

But when they tried to do that, Yue said, “The law of the state of Chu states that to see the king is a privilege only given to someone as a reward for great service. But my knowledge was not sufficient to preserve the kingdom, and my courage was not sufficient to martyr me in fighting off the invaders. When the armies of Wu invaded I was frightened of the danger they brought, and thus tried to get away from them. I was not deliberately following the great king. Now his majesty wants to discard the law and destroy the statutes just to see me; I’ve never heard of such a thing anywhere in the world.”

The king, when told of this, said to Sima Ziqi, “Butcher Yue dwells in a very lowly position but his display of responsible conduct is most lofty. On my behalf you are to offer him a position as one of the Three Nobles.”

When Ziqi did so, Butcher Yue said, “The position of the Three Nobles is, I well know, much loftier than a sheep butcher’s stall, and the attendant emolument of ten thousand zhong would make me far richer than I could ever be on a sheep butcher’s profits. But how could I cause my lord to have the reputation of reckless {233} expenditure just so I can feed off high rank and salary? I dare not take it. I ask to please be permitted to return to my butcher’s stall.” And thus in the end he managed to escape all reward.

Yuan Xian⁵ was living in a round hut in Lu, with weeds growing out of its thatching, an unclosable door made of underbrush and hinged with mulberry branches, windows in both of its small rooms made of broke-bottomed earthenware jugs held in place by coarse cloth. The roof was leaky and the floor was damp, but there he sat squarely framed within it, strumming away at his strings.

Zigong⁶ went on a journey to see him, wearing a white robe with a purple girdle inside it and drawn by a team of massive horses, but the luxuriant carriage was too big to get into the alleyway where Yuan Xian lived. The latter came to his door in a cap made of flower stems, his sandals tied onto his feet with old hairbands, supporting himself on a cane made of pigweed stalks. Zigong said, “Yeesh! What malady afflicts you, sir?”

Yuan Xian said, “I have heard that to be without money is called poverty, but to be unable to put into practice what one has learned is called a malady. I am poor, but I have no malady.”

Zigong stepped back, looking quite ashamed. Yuan Xian smiled and said, “What I really could not bear would be things like trying to please the present generation in all my actions, forming cliques by making friends on all sides, learning for the sake of others and teaching for the sake of myself, hiding in humankindness and responsible conduct, showing off with chariots and horses, that kind of thing!”

When Zengzi⁷ was living in Wei, he wore a robe of tangled hemp with no outer coat and went about with a swollen, hungry look on his face, his hands and feet covered with calluses and corns. He would go three days without lighting a fire and for ten years he wore no newly made clothing; he couldn’t put his cap on straight without snapping the chinstrap; he couldn’t sash his robe shut around him without his elbow sticking out; he couldn’t get his feet into his shoes without busting the heels. But dragging his broken shoes along he would sing “The Paeans of Shang,” and his voice would fill heaven and earth like it was ringing forth from metals and stones. The Son of Heaven could not get him to serve as his minister; the feudal lords could not get him to be their friend. So it is that those who nourish an aspiration forget their own bodies; those who nourish their own bodies forget profit; and those who manifest the Course forget even their own minds.

Confucius said to Yan Hui, “Come, Hui! You come from a poor family of low rank; why do you not take a position as an officer of government?”

{234} Yan Hui said, “I have no wish to be an officer. Outside the wall I have a field of fifty acres, which is sufficient to provide me with gruel and congee. Inside the wall I have a field of ten acres, which is sufficient for the making of silk and hemp. My drum and zither are sufficient for me to entertain myself, and my study of your Course, master, is sufficient for me to enjoy myself. I have no wish to be an officer.”

Confucius blushed, his expression changing entirely. “What a wonderful way of thinking, Hui! I have heard that those who know contentment in what is sufficient do not entangle themselves in profit, that those who understand what they have attained in themselves have no fear of loss, and that those who cultivate themselves within feel no shame in having no official position. I have long been preaching this, but only now, in you, have I seen it with my own eyes. And that is for me a real success.”

Prince Mou of Middle Mountain said to Zhanzi, “My body is here taking in the sights of the rivers and seas, but my mind remains back at the court of Wei. What can I do?”

Zhanzi said, “Value the life in you. If you value the life in you, profit ceases to seem so important.”

Prince Mou said, “I understand that, but I can’t help myself.”

Zhanzi said, “Well, if you can’t help it, then just go with it; do not hate the imponderable spirit in you! If you cannot control your longings, but then you force yourself not to obey them, this is called a double injury. Those who are thus doubly injured are never among the long-lived.”

Mou of Wei was a prince of ten thousand chariots, so he would have had a harder time living on cliffs or in caves than would a scholar who had known no official rank. Although he had not yet arrived at the Course, he can be said to have had some propensity toward it.

Confucius had reached a dead end between Chen and Cai and for seven days had had no cooked food, eating only pigweed soup with nary a scattering of rice. He looked extremely exhausted, and yet he was strumming and singing in his chamber. Yan Hui was sorting vegetables, and Zilu and Zigong came over to talk to him. “The master was twice driven from Lu,” they said, “had his footprints erased from Wei, had a tree cut down on him in Song, was starved out in Shang and Zhou, and now is surrounded by Chen and Cai. Anyone who kills him would be charged with no crime, and anyone who abducts him would be violating no prohibition. And yet he strums and sings, plucking at his zither, with never a break in the onrush of tones. Does the shamelessness of a noble man really have to go quite this far?”

Yan Hui had no answer, so he went inside and reported the conversation to Confucius. Confucius pushed his zither aside and said with a sigh, “Those two are really stunted, tiny men. Call them in here, I will talk to them.”

Zilu and Zigong entered, and Zilu spoke: “Look at you: this can truly be called a total dead end, utter failure.”

{235} Confucius said, “What are you saying? What the noble man calls clear passage, success, is only success and clear passage in the Course; and what he calls a dead end, failure, is only failure and dead end in the Course. I hold fast to the Course of humankindness and responsible conduct. How does the fact that I happen to have encountered the calamity of living in a time of disorder mean that I have reached a dead end? I look within myself and find no dead end in the Course. I encounter difficulties but do not lose my intrinsic virtuosities. When the cold of winter has come, when the frost and dew descend, that is when we can see the flourishing vitality of the pine and the cypress trees.⁸ These dire straits between Chen and Cai are my good fortune!”

Confucius then pulled his zither back to him again and began to strum and sing with cutting intensity. Zilu exuberantly picked up a spear and began to dance along. Zigong remarked, “I had known neither the height of the heavens nor the depth of the earth.”

The ancients who had found the Course were happy whether they succeeded or failed, for what brought them happiness was not success or failure. As long as the Course and its intrinsic powers are there, failure and success are nothing more than a passing sequence of cold and heat and wind and rain. Thus did Xu You enjoy himself alone on the sunny bank of the Ying River, and thus did the Earl of Gong find contentment on the peaks of Mount Gong.⁹

Shun wanted to yield the empire to his friend Choiceless of the North. Choiceless of the North said, “What an outrageous person you are, your majesty!¹⁰ Living in the midst of the channeled fields, you nevertheless went wandering through the gates of Emperor Yao. But that’s not all: you even want to splatter your disgraceful conduct onto me. I am ashamed to even look at you.” Then he went off and threw himself into the abyss of Qingling.

Tang was getting ready to start his attack on Jie¹¹ and thus went to get tactical advice from Bian Sui. Bian Sui said, “It’s got nothing to do with me.” Tang said, “Who then?” The other said, “I have no idea.”

Tang then went to get tactical advice from Wu Guang, who said, “It’s got nothing to do with me.” Tang said, “Who then?” The other said, “I have no idea.”

Tang said, “How about Yi Yin?”

“Well, he can force himself to tolerate disgrace, but I don’t know anything else about him.”

Tang then went to Yi Yin, and with his tactical advice he attacked Jie and defeated him. He then wanted to yield the empire to Bian Sui, who declined the {236} offer, saying, “When your majesty¹² came to me for tactical advice to attack Jie, you must have taken me for a bandit. Now that you have defeated him you want to yield the empire to me, so you must also take me to be avaricious. I was born in this time of disorder; again and again men without the Course show up trying to splatter me with their disgraceful conduct. I cannot bear to hear this sort of talk over and over.” Then he went and drowned himself in the waters of the Zhou.

Tang then wanted to yield the empire to Wu Guang, saying, “A clever man has planned it, and a military man has accomplished it. Now a man of humankindness must take ownership of it. That is the ancient Course. Why would my master not take the position?”

But Wu Guang declined, saying, “Just as deposing one’s ruler is a breach of duty,¹³ and causing the death of the people is a breach of humankindness, to enjoy the benefits earned by difficulties taken on by someone other than oneself would be a breach of scrupulousness. I have been taught that one must accept no pay for jobs done in breach of duty, and one must not set foot on territories when they have strayed from the Course—how much less could I accept the honors accrued by such deeds! I cannot bear to see this sort of thing any longer.” And with that he went off and, fastening a boulder to his back, drowned himself in the waters of the Lu.

Once upon a time, at the rise of the Zhou dynasty, there were two distinguished men who lived in Guzhu named Bo Yi and Shu Qi. On a certain occasion they conferred with one another, saying, “We have heard that there is a man in the west who seems to have the Course.¹⁴ Let us go and see.” When they arrived at the sunny side of Mount Qi, King Wu heard about them and sent his younger brother Dan¹⁵ to go meet with them, offering to make a covenant with them stipulating that after the revolution he was planning they would be second in wealth only to the king and would be given official posts of the very highest rank. The covenant was to be sealed in the blood of a sacrificial animal and buried.

The two looked at each and laughed. “Wow! Outrageous! This is not what we call the Course! Long ago when Shennong¹⁶ possessed the empire, he did the sacrifices at the proper times and with the utmost reverence, but he prayed for no blessings in return. With respect to human beings, he was loyal and trustworthy, making sure all their affairs were put into good order, but sought nothing from them in return. Those who enjoyed partaking in governance did the governing with him, those who enjoyed partaking in orderliness did the ordering with him.¹⁷ {237} He did not build his own success on the ruin of others nor elevate himself by lowering others. He did not take advantage of the times he happened to have found himself in to reap personal gain. But now the house of Zhou sees the disorder of the Shang and suddenly decides to manage the governance of the world, strategizing with those above and bribing those below, relying on an army to guard their authority, using the blood of sacrificial victims for covenants as a proof of good faith, advertising their lofty conduct to appease the masses, engaging in murderous ‘punitive’ military expeditions for their own profit—all this is just overthrowing disorder and replacing it with violence. I have heard that when the distinguished men of olden times found themselves in an age of good order they did not shirk their duties, but when they found themselves in an age of disorder they did not endeavor to survive through shifty compromises. Presently the world is in darkness and the virtuosity of Zhou has already declined. Rather than stand side by side with the Zhou and sully our bodies with its grime, it would be better to stay far away from them and purify our own conduct.”

Then the two of them went north to Mt. Shouyang and starved themselves to death.

Men like Bo Yi and Shu Qi, even if they can attain rank and wealth in a permissible way, will nevertheless certainly not make themselves dependent on such things. Their lofty self-control and fiercely contrarian conduct,¹⁸ their unshared enjoyment of their own commitments, their refusal to serve the present age—these alone were what regulated these two distinguished men.

¹. Commentators seem to agree that this is an alternate designation of the same man, Zizhou Zhifu.

². It is worth noting that the form of address for the sovereign used here is a deliberate archaism, applied to emperors in very early texts but in later times, including the probable date of composition but not the setting of this story, used only to refer to imperial personages of female gender.

³. The grandfather of King Wen, progenitor of the imperial family of the Zhou dynasty.

⁴. For Liezi, see Chapter 1, p. 5; Chapter 7, p. 70; Chapter 18, p. 147; Chapter 19, p. 150; Chapter 21, p. 171; and the eponymous Chapter 32.

⁵. Disciple of Confucius known for his poverty.

⁶. Disciple of Confucius known for his affluence.

⁷. Zeng Shen, disciple of Confucius known for his filial piety.

⁸. Cf. Analects 9:27.

⁹. Said to have abdicated the throne in 828 BCE and retired to Mount Gong.

¹⁰. See note 2 above.

¹¹. Tang’s overthrow of Jie, the last emperor of the Xia Dynasty, was the founding event of the Shang Dynasty.

¹². See note 2 above.

¹³. Yi. Elsewhere “responsible conduct.” see Glossary.

¹⁴. Taken to be a reference to King Wen, father of King Wu and Dan, the Duke of Zhou.

¹⁵. The Duke of Zhou, Confucius’s hero.

¹⁶. “The Divine Farmer,” mythical inventor of agriculture.

¹⁷. Possibly, “He delighting in governing with those who governed, and in bringing order with those who brought order,” or “For those who enjoyed participating in governance he governed, for those who enjoyed participation in order he brought order.”

¹⁸. Following Wang Shumin, taking 戻 as interchangeable with 厲, glossed as a synonym of 抗.