[In the following essay, Cook examines the differences and similarities in the works of Chuang Tzu and Confucius.]

In an article dated to 1944, Guo Moruo puts forth the unusual conjecture that Zhuang Zi (Zhuang Zhou, ca. 365-ca. 285 b.c.) may originally have been a student of the Yan Hui (Yan Yuan, 521-481 b.c.) branch of Ruism.¹ As Guo notes, Yan is a recurring figure throughout the Zhuang Zi, especially in the “inner chapters,” and in nearly all cases is made either to speak important bits of wisdom himself, or else to serve as the recipient for edifying instruction from his master, Kong Zi (Confucius, 551-479 b.c.).² The fact that the Lun Yu describes Yan Hui as one who “did not alter his happiness” while living in impoverished conditions and Kong Zi as one who found “happiness amongst such things” as eating coarse grains and resting upon folded arms³ led Guo to the conclusion that Kong Zi had a “hermitic inclination” to which Yan Hui was the chosen recipient and sole transmitter, and that the mystical states to which Yan is given to attain or aspire in the Zhuang Zi are merely slightly exaggerated developments of this tendency by latter-day followers of the school.⁴

There is probably not enough evidence to regard Guo's thesis as anything more than an interesting piece of speculation. Nonetheless, we need not accept his contention regarding actual school affiliation in order to recognize an important truth contained therein: that Zhuang Zi's attitude toward Kong Zi might best not be considered that of an enlightened recluse's ironic derision toward a diehard defender of the established worldly order of false ritual distinctions and absolutized standards of propriety. Not that that side of it was not an important element, but upon closer observation we may discover in Zhuang Zi's writings a great admiration for much of what constituted the central core of Kong Zi's vision. It is the goal of this essay to provide some insights into what these two thinkers may have shared, as well as to highlight some of the main points of difference within such notions as they work themselves out in the thought of both Zhuang Zi and the Confucians.

We will begin by examining that part of Kong Zi's vision that may have had the greatest influence—in ways we shall examine later—on Zhuang Zi's thinking. It is a vision expressed most succinctly in the image of “musical perfection,” standing for the idea of an embodiment of ritual boundaries so complete that the individual becomes, in effect, no longer bound by them, and thereupon finds himself in spontaneous and harmonious accord with whatever circumstances may arise. We will then see how this Confucian notion of self-cultivation is later enriched by Meng Zi (Mencius, ca. 385-ca. 305 b.c.), an elder contemporary of Zhuang Zi, through his involvement in the developing discourse of his time, wherein he spells out the proper relation between the mind and the vital energy as akin to that of a commander to his troops. Turning next to Zhuang Zi, we will observe how he, quite literally, turned this relation on its head, espousing instead a kind of self-forgetting or emptying of the mind. Finally, we will note how all these ideas come together in the story of Butcher Ding, wherein Zhuang Zi portrays his notion of the art of nurturing life—the art of flowing between the banks and avoiding all sources of contention. We shall conclude that, while approaching the whole concept of self-nurturing from an angle diametrically opposite to that of Confucian self-cultivation, Zhuang Zi nonetheless ends up celebrating a state of mastery and freedom in many ways identical to Kong Zi's notion of musical perfection.

MUSIC AND THE ART OF SELF-COMPLETION

Let us begin with a brief passage from the Lun Yu (Analects) in which Kong Zi is given to extol the value of Music (yue) in the individual's process of self-cultivation:

The Master said, “Arise through the Odes, become established through Ritual, and achieve completion through Music.”⁵

This passage, like most of those in the Lun Yu, is rather vague as it stands; in order to fill in the other “three corners,” let us begin by quoting Zhu Xi's (a.d. 1130-1200) commentary on this passage:

Xing means “to arise” (qi). The Odes are based on human nature and its sentiments (xingqing), and there are [thus] both the depraved and the upright. Their mode of expression is easy to apprehend, and amidst the chanting and intoning, with all the repeated rises and falls, they easily enter to excite a person's mind. Thus, in the early stages of learning, it must be in such a way through which the means to give rise to a mind which delights in the good and despises the bad, and is unable to stop of itself, is attained.

Ritual takes humility, respect, and polite declining as its basis, and is characterized by details of regulation, external patterns, and standard proportions. It can be used to stabilize the conjunctions of one's external movements and the binding of one's internal frame. Thus, in the middle stages of learning, it must be in such a way through which the means to loftily establish oneself, so that one does not get stirred or possessed by external things, is attained.

Music is characterized by the five tones and twelve pitches, sounding forth in a harmonious succession to bring regularity to song and dance and the eight timbres of instruments. It can be used to nurture man's nature and his sentiments, wash away his depravity, and dissolve his flaws. Thus in the final stages of learning, it must be in such a way through which the means to reach the point of being expert in propriety and mature in humaneness, wherein one finds oneself in harmonious accord with virtue and the proper way (zi heshun yu daode), is attained. This is the completion of learning.⁶

Though we might take issue with some of the fine points of his interpretation, Zhu Xi's reading will provide a good starting point for our discussion.

That Kong Zi was credited with having compiled the Shi Jing (Book of Poetry) by paring down some three thousand existing odes, which had supposedly consisted of both those preserved in a sort of canonical liturgy (Ya and Song) and those “collected from among the folk songs of the various states” (Guofeng), is well known. Whether or not this account measures up with reality, it is clear that he at least used the odes of the Shi Jing as teaching materials for his disciples. Lun Yu 1.15 is a case in point:

Zigong asked, “To be impoverished yet not obsequious, wealthy yet not arrogant—how is that?”

“It is acceptable,” said the Master, “[yet] it is not as good as one who is impoverished yet happy (le), wealthy yet fond of Ritual.”

Zigong asked, “The Ode says, ‘Like cutting, like scraping, like carving, like polishing’—does it not refer to this?!”⁷

“Si (Zigong)!,” said the Master, “Now finally may one talk of the Odes with you. When told of what has ‘gone by,’ you know what is ‘coming.’”⁸

As we can determine from a look at the Zuo Zhuan passage of Ji Zha's visit to Lu, the odes of the Shi Jing were meant to be sung, most likely with some musical accompaniment.⁹ Moreover, the musical character of the odes of each state was sufficiently unique for Ji Zha to give his individual assessments. Yet while clearly something more than the simple pneumonic “intoning and chanting” portrayed by Zhu Xi, it was nonetheless the lyrics of the odes that were paramount; the music to which these were set played a subsidiary role. At any rate, it was clearly the lyrics—or the imagery which they conveyed—that were given the attention of Kong Zi and his disciples in their discussions of the Odes. Thus while it is true, as Zhu Xi suggests, that the Odes were to be valued in the early stages of learning for their pneumonic qualities of regularity in line-length, rhyme, and so forth, they were also prized for their use of imagery (as the term xing¹⁰ suggests)—for it is such imagery that gives the learner something concrete from sensual experience to take hold of before he comes to grasp the more subtle principles that it is intended to convey. As in the Ode quoted by Zigong, the imagery of a raw piece of jade being “cut, scraped, carved, and polished” gives the learner his first concrete sense of the hardship involved in the process of self-cultivation—of turning a raw stone into a polished gem.

Having come, through the Odes, to have grasped intellectually an as yet incomplete sense of the goals of learning and the nature of true knowledge, the learner must then proceed to realize such goals in actual practice, to begin to embody such knowledge through the course of his daily routine. Ritual is characterized in its perfected form as much by an internal disposition as it is by outward conformity to ritual norms and practices, but in the earlier stages of learning it is this slow process of practice and habituation of such outward forms that must occupy the attention of the student. He performs all the details of etiquette and normative behavior with an eye toward the larger meaning of these practices, and with all the sincerity of intent that his still-immature mind can muster; yet it is ultimately through a constant practice and gradual embodiment of the forms themselves that he comes to internalize the true nature of Ritual—that, as Zhu Xi suggests, he comes not only to know it intellectually but to perfect it throughout the entire frame of his body. The learner is thus on his way to true wisdom; as his “knowledge” and his “actions” become one, the learner gradually becomes inclined to do exactly what he knows he should do.

Music is the perfection of such internalization—it is the realm of spontaneous harmony. To understand this, we must realize that what Kong Zi likely meant by the study of music was not musical appreciation so much as musical practice. Kong Zi instructed his disciples to become skilled in all of the “six arts” (liuyi), yet music seems to have held a special place among them. Kong Zi himself is reputed to have been a student of the qin,¹¹ and some of his disciples are noted to have played musical instruments in his presence.¹² Setting such external factors aside, however, the interpretation of “Music” from the standpoint of the performer rather than the listener simply offers a more compelling and coherent interpretation of these lines, which, after all, speak of the essentially active and performative process of self-cultivation.¹³

Now it is true with any art or skill that at the center of its acquisition lies the fundamental paradox between the hardship and incessant discipline of constrained practice leading up to it and the spontaneous freedom of performance or the perfect embodiment of artistry marked by its complete attainment. In the case of archery, for example, the novice archer cannot simply aim at the bull's-eye and let the arrows fly, but must spend all his time concentrating on such details as how to hold the bow with his left hand, how to grasp the arrow with his right, how to position his feet, the angles at which to bend his elbows and knees, and so forth. Yet once he has perfected such fundamentals—once he has embodied them throughout his entire frame, at a level much deeper than merely conscious awareness—he may indeed simply focus in on the target and let the arrows fly; he might hit the mark a hundred times out of a hundred.

It is the same with musical performance. The player of the qin must at first spend his time concentrating on the position of his fingers, his posture, and the arches of his hands; on his right-hand fingering and left-hand vibrato technique; on mastering the subtle manipulations of the hands and the rhythmic and dynamic variations that he observes in his teacher's performance; and so forth. Yet once he has mastered these things, his fingers run freely along and among the seven strings as he concentrates solely on the unitary movement of the melodic line. Music conveys an even greater sense of such skill mastery than the other arts, for in addition to the visual and tactile confirmation the performer obtains through his artistic perfection, the mastery of musical skills yields audible reinforcement as well. The qin player not only feels and sees the smooth, connected movement of his perfected technique; simultaneous with his performance, he also takes in through his ears the harmonious sound waves that he is producing, and feels them resonating throughout the entire frame of his body as his fingers glide seamlessly along the top of the smooth, concave paulownia-wood surface. There could be no more total embodiment of harmonious, spontaneous perfection than this. Conceived in such terms, it is easy to see why music might have been chosen by Kong Zi as the image with which to represent such a perfected state of being.

The idea of Music, then, represents the final realization or ultimate perfection of all self-cultivation or “practice.” Music itself thus becomes an “inspiring image” (xing)—a tangible, concrete, particular instance of a general principle or idea—through which is conveyed to the learner one of the most important concepts running throughout the whole of Kong Zi's practical philosophy: the notion of a spontaneous, harmonious mastery achieved as the final result of a gradual embodiment through incessant attention and practice.¹⁴ In the end, the idea applies no less to Ritual than it does to Music; in their perfected stage they are equally characterized by the same sense of spontaneous mastery, and it is primarily for the reasons stated above that the image of Music is the one chosen to convey to the learner his first understanding of the perfected state toward which his study and practice lead. It is an idea that appears to have been at least partially grasped by Zigong in his use of the Ode quoted above. Kong Zi presents to him his idea of a perfected state of being or attitude: being “impoverished yet happy.” That the word chosen to represent this state of “happiness” or “contentment,” le, happens to be the same graph that stands for Music (yue) is, again, no accident—the two terms represent to a great extent the same basic notion. Zigong reveals his appreciation of that notion by quoting from the Ode: “Like cutting, like scraping, like carving, like polishing.”

The reader is left to fill in the gap as to why the quotation is so appropriate. But this is easily understood if we consider again the main point of our previous discussion. Not to be obsequious in an impoverished state may be somewhat difficult, but it yet remains something that one can, with a degree of willpower, simply force oneself to do. Yet to be genuinely “happy” in such a state is an entirely different matter. One cannot simply decide to be happy in humble circumstances; it is an attitude that, like the art of living, must be cultivated over time. As with the constant practice of the archer or student of the qin, the image of the raw jade being cut, scraped, carved, and polished gives us a concrete sense of the arduous journey that one must undergo in order to achieve for oneself the perfected state of happiness, or spontaneous harmony with one's circumstances. This is the aesthetic ideal and ultimate goal of the art of living—the perfection of humanity and moral skills—and like the mastery of any art, it may be achieved only through constant discipline and practice.

It is with the same things in mind that Kong Zi gives his disciples a brief autobiographical sketch of the course of his entire life:

The Master said:
By fifteen I had my mind set on learning, and
by thirty I had become established [in it].
By forty I was no longer perplexed, and
by fifty I knew Heaven's command [upon me].
By sixty my ears accepted things smoothly, and
by seventy I could follow what my mind/heart desired without transgressing the proper standards

(cong xin suo yu, bu yu ju).¹⁵

Each of these lines is well worth consideration, and each has indeed been the subject of much detailed discussion;¹⁶ a comprehensive examination of them here, however, would take us well beyond the confines of this study. For now, let us concentrate on the final line. Though it has taken him seventy years to achieve, Kong Zi has finally, in the twilight of his life, come to realize in his own person that perfected state of being toward which his fifty-five years or so of learning and self-cultivation has been leading. It is, once again, that state of le—happiness or contentment—in which one finds one's mind to be in spontaneous accord with one's circumstances and with all that is demanded by propriety. It is that point which Zhu Xi described as being “expert in propriety and mature in humaneness, wherein one finds oneself in harmonious accord with the proper way of virtue.”¹⁷ It is that point at which what one wants to do and what one should do become synonymous. It is a state of mind of which Kong Zi saw some markings in the person of his favorite disciple, Yan Hui:

The Master said: “How worthy Hui is! With a single basket of food and a single gourd of drink, living in a run-down alley—others cannot bear such sorrow as his, yet Hui never strays from his happiness. How worthy Hui is!”¹⁸

The ultimate goal of learning lies in cultivating the ability to respond appropriately to whatever situation one may find oneself in, and to do so not merely because one has an intellectual grasp of what is proper to the situation, but rather because one has completely internalized such a sense of propriety to the point where one oneself is inclined to do so. It is a notion reiterated many times in the Lun Yu:

The Master said: “Those who are aware of it (zhi zhi) cannot compare to those who are fond of it (hao zhi); those who are fond of it cannot compare to those who find happiness in it (le zhi).”¹⁹

The key lies not merely in achieving an understanding of the proper forms of response, but to cultivate the proper attitude out of which the appropriate responses come naturally. It may be through a mastery of the forms of ritual that such an attitude comes to be internalized, but it is more often than not this idea of “attitude” that gets emphasized over “form” in the course of the Lun Yu.

THE FULL-FLOWING ENERGY

Many of the ideas above expressed in the Lun Yu find their place as well in the Meng Zi, as, for example, the tripartite division of self-cultivation into the three stages of cognitive understanding, Ritual establishment, and Musical completion.²⁰ Meng Zi's philosophy of self-cultivation, however, differed from that of Kong Zi to the extent that it was infused and enriched by notions that began to gain widespread currency in the fourth century b.c. More specifically, the constitution of the thinking and feeling human being in terms of such constituent elements as the mind (xin) and the vital energy (qi) revealed itself as a source of philosophical concern around this time, and this had important implications for the ways in which the process of self-cultivation was to be conceived. A brief look at Meng Zi's approach to the issue will help us understand the salient points of similarity and difference between the developing Confucian self-cultivation philosophy and that of Meng Zi's younger contemporary, Zhuang Zi, who likewise found himself addressing, in his own unique way, the major concerns of his intellectual milieu.

These issues are brought to the fore in the famous haoran zhi qi passage of Meng Zi 3.2 (2A.2). A detailed analysis of this complex passage would distract us from the main concerns of this essay, and I have given a fully annotated translation of it elsewhere;²¹ here I shall limit the presentation to those portions relevant to an understanding of the point at hand. Let us first recall how the passage begins—with a discussion of courage, the “unstirred mind”:

Gongsun Chou said, “[Let us grant], my master, [that] were you, occupying a high ministerial position in Qi, able to carry out your way there, it would not be surprising even though you were thereby to make it into a hegemony or kingdom. This being the case, would it stir your mind?”

“No,” replied Meng Zi, “my mind has not been stirred since I was forty.”

“If this is so, then my master has far surpassed Meng Ben [in courage].”

“That is not difficult; Gao Zi was prior to me in not having his mind stirred.”

“Is there a way to not have the mind stirred?”

Meng Zi then replies to this last question with a discussion of courage, comparing that exemplified by Beigong You to that of Mengshi She. The former is described as the sort of man who would react violently toward the slightest of insults, no matter how strong or powerful the opponent; he feared no one, caring only about defending his honor in the face of external challenges. The latter, Mengshi She, is differentiated by the fact that his fearlessness stemmed from not taking into consideration the prospects of victory when engaging the enemy; he felt no need to win, but only to control his own fear. Meng Zi then sums up by saying that while he did not know which of the two gentlemen was more worthy [in his courage], Mengshi She guarded over [it] more firmly. He next brings up the courage of Zeng Zi, who had learned from Kong Zi that “great courage” consisted in fearing no one when one found himself to be in the right, and in not opposing anyone when one found himself to be in the wrong. Meng Zi then concludes that “Mengshi She did not, in turn, guard over his vital energy as firmly as did Zeng Zi.”²²

Now, at this point, Gongsun Chou asks to hear of the difference between Meng Zi's and Gao Zi's abilities not to have their minds stirred, to which Meng Zi replies as follows:

Gao Zi has stated: “If you do not obtain it through words (yan), do not search for it in your mind (xin); if you do not obtain it through your mind, do not search for it in your vital energy (qi).” [Now] not to search for in your vital energy that which you do not obtain through your mind is allowable, but not to search for in your mind that which you do not obtain through words is not allowable. For the mind's intent is the commander of the vital energy, and the vital energy is the filling of the body. For wherever the mind's intent arrives, the vital energy sets up camp.²³ Thus [I?] say: “maintain your mind's intent; do not let your vital energy erupt forth (chi qi zhi, wu bao qi qi).”²⁴

Shortly on, he responds to the question of wherein he is superior to Gao Zi by saying that he “knows words” (zhi yan) and is “good at cultivating” his “full-flowing energy” (haoran zhi qi).²⁵ He then goes on to describe the latter of these two as follows:

“It is hard to put into words,” said [Meng Zi]. “It is a vital energy such that is of the utmost in largeness and rigidity. If it is cultivated through uprightness and not harmed, then it will fill up the space between Heaven and Earth. It is a vital energy such that goes together with propriety and [correct] ways. Without these, it will be deflated. It is something which is born of the accumulation of propriety (ji yi suo sheng)—it is not a matter of snatching up propriety in a surprise attack. If there is something in one's conduct not satisfying to the mind, then it will become deflated. I therefore say that Gao Zi never knew propriety, because he externalized it (wai zhi).”

Meng Zi goes on to close this portion of the conversation with the story of the man from Song who tried to “help along the growth” of his sprouts by pulling up on them, and in this is an implicit criticism of Gao Zi as one who, though able to achieve an unstirred mind of sorts, never really understood the principles of self-cultivation, precisely because he tried to “help along its growth (zhu zhang).”

The passage thus centers on a fundamental philosophical distinction (as Meng Zi chose to view it) between the thought of Gao Zi (Gao Buhai, ca. 420-ca 350 b.c.) and that of Meng Zi himself—specifically in terms of how it relates to the task of self-cultivation. Gao Zi is a figure of uncertain affiliation, though there is some evidence²⁶ to suggest that he may have belonged to the Mohist school. T'ang Chün-yi has argued at great length that the cornerstone of Mohist thought lay in the notion of propriety, yi, coopted by the Mohists from their Confucian rivals and adapted to form a nearly polar opposite to the latter's notion of humanity, ren. Paraphrasing Tang's words, whereas “humanity” connoted essentially a subjectively internal envelopment of the world within one's mind, “propriety” implied the external expression of what one knows to be appropriate so that it is made objectively explicit for all to see.²⁷ It is from this concept that we find the Mohist interest in establishing external standards of right and wrong, of upward conformity (shangtong), and of profit or benefit (li) defined solely on the basis of material needs, and ultimately on even the later-Mohist attention to the analysis of names.

Whatever the case, the Gao Zi of this passage was, in Meng Zi's own words, certainly someone who “externalized propriety.” Zhu Xi, in his note to this line, points out that Gao Zi's call “not to search for it in your mind if you do not obtain it through words” is none other than this idea of “externalizing propriety” and reminds us that the details of this notion may be found in the first half of the “Gao Zi” chapter. Specifically, in passage 11.4 (6A.4), Gao Zi tells Meng Zi that while humanity is internal, propriety is external, basing his claim on the fact that when we treat an elder with respect (an act of propriety), we do so because of the objective fact that he is older than we, and we are not swayed in this act by any internal bias such as we are when we love our own brother more than we do the brother of a man from Qin (an act of humanity). Implicit in this is the notion that all decisions of propriety may be made with reference only to the external, objective facts of the situation, without any consideration of the subjective feelings of one's own heart/mind—a consideration that may, in fact, tend only to bias one against making such properly objective determinations. We may thus account for Gao Zi's phrase, “if you do not obtain it through words, do not search for it in your mind.” As T'ang Chün-yi demonstrates, the terms yan (“words”) and yi (“propriety”) are often used interchangeably by Gao Zi and in the Mo Zi, both referring to what we might call “doctrine.”²⁸

Tang further draws the interesting comparison of how the way in which Gao Zi's ability to achieve an unstirred mind through his unreflective faith in the power of established doctrine and external standards resembles the ardent zeal of many people today who have the fortitude to carry out the most arduous of acts simply by clinging to the authority of a religious dogma or political ideology. Now whether Gao Zi's phrase here is meant to refer to what one cannot obtain from doctrine, or something more along the lines of what one cannot settle through the manifest determinations of rhetorical argumentation, it is in any event because of this insistence on basing all decisions of propriety upon externally determined objective standards that he is able to control his feelings of fear and indecision from the outside and quickly and effectively achieve the ability to maintain an unstirred mind.

Meng Zi, to be sure, expresses agreement with half of Gao Zi's statement, that you should not search in the vital energy for what you do not obtain through your mind (/heart). While the two may have viewed the exact purport of this statement with somewhat different eyes, they likely both held the belief, as expressed quite vividly through Meng Zi's allusion to the figures of Beigong You and Mengshi She, that the mind should remain master over the vital energy (directly or indirectly as the case may be)—that one should take care not to react, like Beigong You, with impulsive rashness toward each confrontational situation that comes along; one must keep his vital energy firmly in check and not allow it to “erupt forth.” Where Meng Zi believes himself superior to Gao Zi lies in his claim that he “knows words”—that he has the ability to look behind the words of others to detect the source from which such words come to be “biased, excessive, depraved, or deceptive.” It is precisely because Meng Zi utilizes his reflective mind to determine the source of such errors of discourse that he is able thus to “know words,” whereas Gao Zi cannot attain to this because he cuts his losses right at the point where ideology and rhetorical argument fail him—precisely because he gives such “words” the highest priority, he does not recognize the intuitive mind as a source for detecting just when and how such words may go astray.

It is in his discussion of the cultivation of the full-flowing energy that Meng Zi spells out clearly the relation between the commanding mind and the vital energy. Essentially, the relationship, if properly cultivated, is mutually beneficial—in the same sense as is the relationship between a general and his troops. It is under the discipline, training, and direction of the mind that the vital energy is able to gather strength as a unified force with a clear-cut objective, so that it may proceed forth like a turbulent river rushing onward between its banks. Likewise, the mind is provided with the courage and fortitude to follow through on what it now knows intuitively to be right precisely because it has harnessed the full strength of this onrushing energy—the commander has the power of his troops behind him. Yet the most important aspect of all this is the fact that the cultivation of this courageous energy is something that takes place only gradually over time, through the constant attention and inner reflection of the mind on what is right for each new situation and its acting upon it in accordance with such reflection; in the words of Meng Zi, it is “born of the accumulation of propriety, and not a matter of snatching away propriety in a surprise attack.”²⁹

Meng Zi argues this point most forcefully and effectively by bringing in the structural analogy of gardening and the growth of plants: one must attend to them daily by pulling up the noxious weeds that keep cropping up and threatening to overtake them, and it is a labor that must continue unremitted until the plants finally bear fruit. The process cannot be rushed, and this is precisely where Gao Zi fails—like the idiot from Song who thought he could hasten the growth of his sprouts by pulling upon them, his efforts to impose upon his mind from the outside the control of external doctrine or debate could only result in the failure to attain any sort of true moral fortitude.

THE ILL-BODING VESSELS AND THE USE OF THE USELESS

We shall see shortly how Zhuang Zi fits into this discourse, but in order to do so we must first make a few preliminary observations on the nature of his thought. We may begin by taking up the question of knowledge (zhi). The Zhuang Zi is probably unique in pre-Qin literature in its treatment of knowledge as something undesirable. Even in the Dao De Jing, knowledge is consistently viewed as a positive asset, so long as you keep it to yourself and do not allow others to come into possession of it.³⁰ In the “Renjianshi” chapter of the Zhuang Zi, Kong Zi, on learning from Yan Hui that the latter was about to embark on a journey to Wei with the purpose of persuading its ruler to be more conscientious toward the people in his rule, tries to dissuade his disciple from doing anything so foolish by telling him that he would “probably be going only to meet up with some mutilating punishment.” The “‘attained man’ (zhiren) of old,” Yan Hui is told, is someone who “first preserved it within himself before he preserved it within others.” Kong Zi then continues as follows:

And are you indeed aware of wherein virtue is shaken up and of what sake knowledge comes forth? Virtue is shaken up through fame (ming), and knowledge comes forth of struggle. “Fame” is reciprocal steamrolling, and “knowledge” is the vessel of struggle. These two are ill-boding vessels (xiong qi), and not that whereby one may exhaust his conduct.

And [though your own] virtue be earnest and your word sincere, [you] have still yet to arrive at the other man's vital energy (qi), and [though you yourself] strive not for fame and renown, [you] have still yet to arrive at the other man's mind (xin). And yet you forcefully make in front of the other man a showy display of your words of humanity, propriety, and the straight-lined—this is to peddle your beauty by way of the ugliness of the other man, and this is called “to bring ruin upon others.” For those who bring ruin upon others, others will invariably bring ruin upon them in turn. Alas, you are bound to meet up with ruin at the hands of another!³¹

Now both of these “ill-boding vessels” had been terms of some importance in the Dao De Jing.³² There, ming (fame, renown) was more or less synonymous with the notion of visibility, something by which he who possessed it became distinguished from others, and hence the source of the desires of others and contention over things, leading to the invariable loss of possession or position for the one who owned them. There is some similarity here with the position of the Zhuang Zi. Fame, or “mutual steamrolling” (xiang ya), is not denounced per se as something bad, but primarily because such “beauty” is gained at the expense of another's “ugliness,” and hence as the source of one's downfall, as revenge is invariably extracted for the slight. Later in the passage, ming is paired with shi, or the substantial material gain that often goes along with fame (roughly equivalent to Lao Zi's “hard-to-obtain-goods”), as the twin paths to ruin traveled by those who seek them.³³ Yet in the Dao De Jing, fame is to be desired at the same time it is not being desired,³⁴ while in the Zhuang Zi the simultaneous desirability of the “named” is never so clearly indicated.³⁵

It is likewise with knowledge; while the “Renjianshi” passage suggests it to be the display of one's knowledge that ultimately gets one into trouble, we nonetheless get the sense from reading the “inner chapters” that knowledge for Zhuang Zi had come to lie more directly at the root of all contention and disaster than had been the case with his predecessor. Knowledge is an ill-boding vessel, the means through which struggle may take place, in the same sense as the implements of warfare that are described in the Dao De Jing as “inauspicious vessels” (chapter 31). Weapons serve no other purpose than killing and are to be used only when unavoidable. Knowledge is likewise portrayed to be intrinsically a weapon of destruction, an implement whose sole purpose is the slaughter of the positions of others in pursuit of one's own reputation and material gain. The destruction ultimately turns out to be mostly self-destruction, and what is gained proves not in the end to be worth the costs expended in its procurement.

It could be argued that any such concern with self-destruction is contradictory to some of the greater concerns in Zhuang Zi's thought. For is it not described elsewhere how it is, from the point of view of the limitlessness of time, that life and death are but the two seasons in the continual process of creation and metamorphosis? Fear of death is simply fear of the unknown, which, qua unknown, may very well be better than one's current lot.³⁶ Yet Zhuang Zi's questioning of the wisdom of delighting in life while despising death should not be construed as a nihilistic denial of the value of life, and indeed it is no contradiction to embrace both life and death openly if both are viewed as parts of an eternally changing cycle of transformation. To know how to live is to know how to die, and vice versa.³⁷

Thus, as with the Dao De Jing, which is centrally concerned with the idea of attaining longevity in the face of the changing world, the Zhuang Zi, too, reiterates in many places throughout the inner chapters the notion of living out the full extent of one's natural life span—of “living out one's heavenly years (zhong qi tiannian).”³⁸ In Kong Zi's response to Yan Hui given above, fame and knowledge are described as the two main obstacles to this goal, as those who wield such instruments are “bound to meet up with ruin at the hands of another.” And it is in this sense that Zhuang Zi extols “the usefulness of the useless” (wuyong zhi yong)—such as those twisted, knotty trees avoided by carpenters: “Not to be cut down by axes, there is nothing that will harm it; as it has no place for which it may be of use, wherein lies any hardship?!”³⁹ Zhuang Zi's is a philosophy, then, of how to live life: how to enjoy it, how to get the most out of it, how to live it freely and without dependence, how to avoid its pitfalls, how to nurture and preserve it, and how to accept and embrace its inevitable return into the great unity from which it first sprang.

The living, nurturing, and preserving of one's allotted years constitute the central themes of the “Yangshengzhu” chapter, which opens as follows:

My life has its boundaries (ya), while knowledge has no boundaries. To follow the boundless with the bounded is precarious. This being so, to yet pursue knowledge is precarious and nothing more.

In acting toward the good, do not approach fame (ming); in acting toward the bad, do not approach punishment. Take following the center as your guiding thread (yuan du yi wei jing)⁴⁰—you may thereby preserve your body, bring completeness to your life, nurture your parents, and live the full extent of your years.⁴¹

Once again the goals are self-preservation and the living out of one's natural allotment of years, and the obstacles to these goals are the pursuits of knowledge and fame (not to mention punishment, to which the pursuit of fame often leads). In one interpretation, the scope of what is to be known and hence desired is boundless, while the mind's capacity to comprehend it is limited, so that there is always something excluded when the human mind makes distinctions or affirmations of knowledge. Bounded in by their particular vantage points, contending minds struggle with each other to establish the primacy of their own affirmations, and such strife leads to bloodshed and mutilation, not to mention needless toil of the mind and body.⁴² Here centrality is espoused as the guiding thread to living one's life; elsewhere it is the notion of vacuity, of the empty mind, that forms the central theme in Zhuang Zi's approach to life.

VACUITY, THE VITAL ENERGY, AND THE EMPTY MIND

The notion of vacuity, xu, is a term of some importance in the Dao De Jing, but is limited to just a few examples in a variety of contexts.⁴³ In the Zhuang Zi, the idea of xu as the ideal state of mind receives a new emphasis. The notion is most clearly expressed later on in the conversation between Yan Hui and Kong Zi from the “Renjianshi” cited above. When Yan Hui asks Kong Zi what he means by the term “fasting of the mind,” xin zhai, the conversation continues as follows:

Kong Zi said, “Unify your mind's inclinations (zhi). Do not listen with your ears, but rather listen with your mind; do not listen with your mind, but rather listen with your vital energy! The ears go no farther than listening,⁴⁴ and the mind goes no farther than tallying. The vital energy is that which is vacuous and awaits things [to come to it] (xu er dai wu). Only the Dao gathers in vacuity. Vacuity is the fasting of the mind.”

Yan Hui said, “Prior to my receiving this instruction, I was really just Hui; now that I have attained to such instruction, Hui is yet to exist—can this be called vacuity?”

Kong Zi said, “That's all of it! …”⁴⁵

Upon close observation, this passage reveals a great similarity to the haoran zhi qi passage (3.2 [2A.2]) of the Meng Zi, analyzed above. Compare the following lines:

[Meng Zi:] Gao Zi said, “if you don't get it in words, do not seek it in [your] mind; if you do not get it in [your] mind, do not seek it in [your] vital energy.”

[Zhuang Zi:] Do not listen with your ears, but rather listen with your mind; do not listen with your mind, but rather listen with your vital energy!

It would seem from this that Gao Zi and Zhuang Zi come out on diametrically opposite ends of the same debate, with Meng Zi halfway in between. More precisely, Zhuang Zi here picks up on perhaps an old Ruist-Mohist debate⁴⁶ in which are discussed the primacy of the three accepted divisions of which the human psyche (for lack of a better word) is constituted—the analytic-argumentative (speech/ears), the intuitive-reflective (heart-and-mind), and the visceral-reactive (vital energy)—and chooses the one out of the three that no one else deigned to give serious consideration.⁴⁷ And it is this by which Zhuang Zi, on a fundamental level, distinguishes his own brand of philosophy from that of the other thinkers and schools. It may pay to give this distinction greater attention.

Recall that Meng Zi rejected Gao Zi's claim that we need not look beyond doctrine or the outcome of verbal debate in deciding the truth of a matter. For Gao Zi, if a point cannot be demonstrated through the appeal to explicitly objective standards, no further entreaty should be made to the determinative inclinations of the intuitive mind—this an outcome of his notion that “propriety lies without” (yi wai), there thus being no need to look “inside.” Meng Zi realized that the powers of verbal reasoning are limited, and, if not constantly referenced back to the heart-and-mind, which originally possesses an innate sense of the right and an inclination toward the good, can easily lead this latter astray. People often use sophisticated arguments to cover up or rationalize moral or spiritual defects, and though one may not be able to unravel all the intricacies of their wordings, one may still possess an intuitive sense of right and wrong and thus be aware of what the other party is concealing without having to retrace the thread of the argument and expose its flaws one by one.

At the same time, however, the mind must remain master over the vital energy. It is the mind that possesses innate knowledge, can discriminate between right and wrong, and can evaluate each situation before deciding upon a course of action. The vital energy lacks any specific content; it is reactive and unwieldy and can get one into trouble if not taken under tight control. It is thus the mind's job to tame the vital energy into submission, to nurture it, rear it, and, through a process of gradual accumulation of proper action, raise it to the point where it accords spontaneously with the mind's will, where the inclinations of the vital energy and the actions decided upon by the mind are one and the same, where one may now react automatically to each situation without transgressing what is right.

For Zhuang Zi, however, such a process has the equation backwards. It is not the vital energy that should be nurtured by the mind, but rather the mind that should be nurtured by the vital energy. Vacuity, empty responsiveness, is the goal, and the vital energy is “that which is vacuous and awaits things.” The mind is the seat of knowledge—that ill-boding vessel; it is that part of the person in which unnatural desires are aroused, which leads one into the process of affirming one's own sense of right at the expense of another's, and which thereby leads one into strife and trouble. Such is the downfall of the predetermined mind (chengxin). The “fasting of the mind” is the process of losing such a predetermined mind—the process of “losing one's self” (wu sang wo). Yan Hui realizes that, once the fasting is complete, he will no longer be conscious of his own individual (“Hui's”) existence. The mind thus becomes of a kind with the vital energy—empty and reactive, responding naturally and without predetermination to whatever may cross its path—and as a result does not meet with any difficulty or harm as it roams its way through the world. “The attained man uses his mind like a mirror,” we are told. “He neither approaches nor comes out to welcome; he is responsive and conceals nothing—thus he can be victorious over things and meet with no harm.”⁴⁸ The attainment of the “constant mind” (changxin) is likened, through the mouth of Kong Zi, to the mirroring effect of water:

Nobody views his reflection in running water, but rather views it in still water. Only stillness can bring stillness to the many stillnesses.⁴⁹

It is only such a vacuous mind that can serve as a source of reflection for others, and it is thus the still mind, and not the self-affirming and other-denying mind set upon right and wrong, that can truly achieve an influence, since, by virtue of its wholeness and impartiality, the other may clearly perceive his own narrowness therein. It is the harmonious unity of an inner virtue that makes no outer display of any particular stance of self-affirmation, and it is herein that one's mind may roam freely without incurring any loss (you xin hu de zhi he).⁵⁰ The nurturing of life consists in the emptying of the mind, and the entrusting of one's self to fate (an ming)⁵¹ and the unavoidable—the free roaming of the mind in the river of life and forgetting about the existence of the other fish. As Kong Zi is made to say:

For to ride upon things and let the mind roam, to entrust one's self in the unavoidable and nurture the central—this is to have attained it!”⁵²

CARVING THE OX

Like Meng Zi's nurturing of the mind, the fasting of the mind is a process that takes some time before mastery is achieved. For Meng Zi it was a process involving the accumulation of proper action, whereas for Zhuang Zi it is that of gradual self-forgetting, single-minded concentration, and the cultivation of pure responsiveness. And the final state achieved thereby, for Zhuang Zi as well as Kong Zi and Meng Zi, can essentially be described in terms of musical perfection and improvisatory freedom.

Such a state is portrayed in the second section of the “Yangshengzhu” chapter, in the story of Butcher Ding's dismemberment of the ox:

Butcher Ding was dismembering an ox for Lord Wen-Hui.⁵³ Wherever he placed his hand, leaned his shoulder, stepped his foot, or jabbed his knee, it would resound with sounds of “hwek,” “hwrek”⁵⁴ as he advanced his knife in rhythmic movement, not a motion struck failing to make music. Now concurring with the dance of the Mulberry Forest, it would then accord to the rhythm of Jingshou.⁵⁵

Lord Wen-Hui exclaimed, “Ah, wonderful! Can skill attain to such a state as this?!”

Butcher Ding set aside his knife and replied, “That which your servant takes delight in is Dao—it goes beyond [mere] skill. Back when I first started dismembering oxen, I saw nothing but the oxen (in their entirety).⁵⁶ After three years, I came never to perceive the entire ox. At the present time, I encounter it with my spirit rather than view it with my eyes;⁵⁷ sense apprehension (guanzhi) comes to a halt and spiritual desire (shenyu) takes off.⁵⁸ I follow upon its natural order (yi hu tianli): I cleave apart its great crevices and guide a path through its great hollows, following along with what is inherently there (yin qi guran). I never make an attempt at the crisscrossed sinews or flesh-knotted tendons—let alone its great gnarled bones!

“A good butcher changes knives once a year, because of [all] the severing; an average butcher changes knives every month, because they get broken in two. Your servant's knife has as of now survived nineteen years, and has dismembered all of several thousand oxen, and yet the blade of the knife appears as if it had just come off the grindstone. Their joints have gaps, while the blade of the knife has no thickness; using that which has no thickness to enter into that which has gaps (yi wu hou ru you jian)—ever-so-smoothly, there is sure to be more-than-ample room for the roaming of the blade. That is why after nineteen years the blade of the knife yet appears as if fresh off the grindstone.⁵⁹

“Nevertheless, each time I arrive at some knotted cluster, I perceive the difficult going and cautiously take my guard: my observation comes to a halt (shi wei zhi)⁶⁰ and my movement proceeds slowly. I wield the knife with the slightest of motions, and with one ‘HWRAK’ it has already fallen apart, like so much earth scattering upon the ground. I lift up my knife and stand upright, look upon the scene in all four directions, and teeter about [contented] with the job.⁶¹ Fully satisfied, I take good care of my knife⁶² and store it away.”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Lord Wen-Hui. “Having heard the words of Butcher Ding, I may thereby attain to the nurturing of life (yang sheng)!”⁶³

This passage will prove to tie in very closely with the opening passage of the “Yangshengzhu” chapter, translated in the section before last. That passage, you will recall, spoke of the boundaries of living versus the boundlessness of knowing, and how the latter could constitute a danger to the former if pursued. Such danger lay in the form of fame (ming) and its consequent punishment (xing). Instead we were advised, if we wished to preserve ourselves and live out our natural years, to “take the center as our guiding thread.” In the Butcher Ding passage, we are given the same set of ideas now in the form of a concrete image: that of the mastery of a skill which operates along the same set of principles as the mastery of living in general.

The two passages are mutually elucidating. Having now read through the Butcher Ding story, we understand more clearly what was meant by the term ya, boundaries, in the opening passage. The term literally refers to the borders which surround a body of water, the banks of a river between which the water flows along its course.⁶⁴ Viewed in such terms, life's boundaries are simply the natural course along which life should follow if everything is to go smoothly. This reminds us of another water metaphor ubiquitous in Warring States period philosophical works: the term shun (“with the flow,” “unimpeded”). Life is conceived of as a natural flow—a floating or roaming upon water, as it were—while knowledge knows no confines. It is the attempt to pursue that which lies beyond the banks that gets us into trouble. We should instead take “following along the central,” yuan du, as our guiding thread through life, go along with the natural flow, and ride down the river of life unimpeded—realizing that one day it will have run its course, yet making no attempt to cling to one of the scraggy rocks that line its banks.

The idea of “following the central” gets picked up in the Butcher Ding story. The “river banks of life” becomes the “natural order” (tianli) and the “inherently so” (guran) of the ox—the natural grain of the animal that the butcher “follows along” (yi, yin) as he guides his knife through it. That he has reached the state of being able to do so is the result of a kind of “fasting of the mind”; formerly he saw nothing but the oxen themselves, but now that he has mastered the technique—nay the art, the Dao—of ox-carving; he has achieved a single-minded focus in which he perceives nothing but the path through which he glides his knife in smooth, rhythmic motion. His “sense apprehension” (guanzhi) has come to a halt, and his “spiritual desire” (shenyu) takes off; no longer pursuing the “knowledge that knows no boundaries,” he takes no notice of the ox as a whole. His vision, that which looks beyond the banks and gives rise to unnatural desires, ceases to be utilized. His mind achieves a pure vacuity of reactive concentration: not looking with the eyes, he encounters the ox with his spirit; not knowing any fame or gain, his mind gives way to a pure, single-minded spiritual desire.

He is the opposite of the average butcher, for that poor fellow knows and desires too many things, thinking he can win his way through life by going straight at those knotty sinews and tendons, or perhaps even the bones—to end only by cutting his years short, by snapping his blade in the course of subduing unnecessary difficulties. Butcher Ding knows no such obstacles, instead roaming freely through the interstices of life single-mindedly, with a satisfied mind. In taking such a path through life, all of its difficulties are thereby dismembered simply by cutting around them, along their natural grain, and the “blade” of one's “knife” is preserved for ten plus nine years and counting, as one roams through the river of life free and easy and in the throngs of a deep self-contentment.

Now in observing all this, what truly inspires Lord Wen-Hui, what sets him to exclaiming beyond end his praises to this menial worker, is the intense rhythm and musicality of this butchering. It may have escaped the attention of all the commentators, but the Marquis's exclamation is striking in its similarity to a well-known exclamation from an earlier figure. Lord Wen-Hui's

Wonderful! Can skill attain to such a state as this?!

would seem to resonate with

I had no idea that the making of music could attain to such a state as this!

This latter, of course, is the statement in the Lun Yu (7.14) attributed to Kong Zi, after his having heard in Qi the music of the legendary sage-ruler Shun.⁶⁵ This, I would argue, is no coincidence. Kong Zi's vision of musical perfection was, it would appear, greatly admired by Zhuang Zi, who lived a good couple of centuries or so before the Western Han scholars who would invent the label of “Daoist” and clearly segregate those classified into such a category to a camp widely separate from the “Ruists.” Zhuang Zi, I would argue once again, was generally quite fond of Kong Zi's contributions to philosophy, while at the same time being acutely aware of their shortcomings, particularly as they manifested themselves in the debates of later Ruists engaged in polemic with the Mohists. The majority of the stories in the inner chapters involving Kong Zi tend to cast him in a positive light, usually expounding to his disciple Yan Hui the subtle and profound philosophy of some greater sage-teacher. Even the parts of the inner chapters unfavorable to Kong Zi are only mildly so. All this points to the fact that we may be better off looking at the relationship between the two philosophers in terms of a creative adaptation and rethinking of Kong Zi's thought by Zhuang Zi, rather than purely as an attempt by the latter somehow to set up a philosophy meant to oppose or even overturn that of the former. Zhuang Zi, as always, is much more playful than he is combative—a crucial point to which the anti-Ruist scholars of our own day seem to be blind.

As we noted above, Kong Zi's lifetime of learning was a process that finally led him to a state of spontaneous harmony and improvisatory freedom—a state equivalent to “achieving completion through Music”—in which he could “follow what his mind desired (cong xin suo yu) without transgressing the proper standards.” Butcher Ding achieves a similar state; he can follow “what his spirit desires” (shenyu) without transgressing any knotted tendons or gnarled bones.⁶⁶ Like Kong Zi, he cuts up everything the way it should be cut up, and he does so spontaneously and freely, without the need for conscious reflection and consideration, as he flows along with the natural grain in rhythmic motion, like a piece of music developing along its course. He is, in short, a man who has mastered his art; and, like that of Kong Zi, it is as much an art of living as it is an art of butchering. The funny thing is, Butcher Ding seems to have taken only three years to master his Dao, whereas for Kong Zi it took all of seventy years of his life. Perhaps it is just the case that unlearning is faster than learning.

For Zhuang Zi, one should dissolve the predetermined mind, the eye which looks beyond the borders, and react to things reflectively with one's vital energy and thereby roam about freely between life's banks. In Meng Zi's version of the embodiment of moral perfection, the mind is the general of the vital energy; it rears and nurtures it, strengthening it slowly and gradually through the accumulation of proper action until eventually it fills one's entire being and goes on outward to affect the world around it through the sheer energy of its force. Zhuang Zi's ideal man, too, is able to attract a following and influence those around him through the force of his inner being alone. But, as with mutilated sages such as Wang Tai,⁶⁷ it is an unintended, mirror-like influence that serves as a source of reflection for those who encounter him. He is able to so serve because his mind has affirmed no right that would disaffirm some other's wrong; his vital energy has been given no definite content. The Ruists and Mohists, on the other hand, sharpen their knives daily and set straight for the tendons and bones of society, and when one of them breaks his blade, another is set off to take his place in the ceaseless battle of right and wrong. Is it not indeed a tragedy?

We end up, when looking at the Confucians in comparison to Zhuang Zi, with two fundamentally different types of freedom. One is the freedom that has embodied constraint within itself, and the other is the freedom that roams in between constraints. It is largely a matter of one's attitude toward the world—whether one accepts an internal standard of moral correctness and tries throughout the course of one's life to live up to it, or whether one perceives the relativity of all right and wrong and simply entrusts oneself to wherever fate may place one, embracing one's lot and roaming about uselessly, with no desire for worldly fame and no aversion toward the inevitable awakening from the great dream of life. Yet while both the nature of such a state of being and the means by which to attain it were fundamentally different for the two, Kong Zi and Zhuang Zi alike shared a harmonious vision of the achievement of a mastery of living marked by spontaneity and improvisatory freedom.

Notes

1. “Zhuangzi de pipan,” in Guo Moruo quanji, Lishi bian, vol. 2 (Beijing: Renmin, 1982), pp. 188-212. The Yan [Hui] branch of Ruism (Yan shi zhi ru) is one of the eight branches of Ruism, listed in the opening of the “Xian xue” chapter of the Han Fei Zi, into which the school supposedly divided after the death of Kong Zi (Chen Qiyou, Hanfeizi jishi [reprint, Taipei: Huazheng, 1987], p. 1080; see also Guo Moruo quanji, 2: 143-147). All dates given in this essay are, except where otherwise noted, based on the textual portion of Ch'ien Mu's Xian Qin zhuzi xinian, (1935; 2d ed., rev. and enl., 1956; 3d ed., Taipei: Dongda, 1990).

2. “Inner chapters” passages imputing words to Yan Hui include “Renjianshi,” Zhuangzi jishi, pp. 131-152, and “Dazongshi,” pp. 183-185. References in other chapters include “Tian yun,” pp. 511-513; “Zhi le,” pp. 620-623; “Da sheng,” pp. 641-644; “Shan mu,” pp. 690-695; “Tian Zifang, pp. 706-711, 711-717 [esp. 716-717], 723; “Zhi beiyou,” pp. 765-768; and “Rang wang,” pp. 978-979, 981-983 (and “Dao Zhi,” p. 991, and “Yu fu,” p. 1034). All (except for the last two, in which he merely drives Kong Zi's chariot), have him in conversation with his master. The references throughout the Zhuang Zi to Kong Zi himself, obviously, far outnumber those with Yan Hui.

3. Lun Yu 6.9; Lunyu zhengyi (6.11), pp. 226-227; Lun Yu 7.15; Lunyu zhengyi (7.16), p. 267. All references in this essay, except as noted, will be cited as follows. For the Lun Yu, the first chapter/passage number refers to the grouping of the text in Zhu Xi's (1130-1200) Lunyu jizhu (in Sishu zhangju jizhu, Taiwan collated edition [Taipei: Chang'an, 1991]). This will be followed by the page number(s) for Liu Baonan's (1791-1855) Lunyu zhengyi, ed. Gao Liushui (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1990); the passage/chapter number for Liu's work will be given in parentheses where it differs from Zhu's numbering. For the Meng Zi, chapter/passage numbers will be cited in the 1-14 numbering system for chapters standard in Chinese editions of the text; for convenience, this will be followed in parentheses by the 1A/B-7A/B numbering common in English studies of the work. Page numbers refer to Jiao Xun's (1763-1820) Mengzi zhengyi, ed. Shen Wenzhuo (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987). For the Zhuang Zi, passages will be listed by reference to chapter titles and the page numbers in Guo Qingfan's (nineteenth-century) Zhuangzi jishi, ed. Wang Xiaoyu (1895; Beijing: Zhonghua, 1961).

4. Guo Moruo quanji, pp. 192-193.

5. Lun Yu 8.8; Lunyu zhengyi, pp. 298-299.

6. Sishu zhangju jizhu, pp. 104-105.

7. This line comes from the poem “Qi ao” of the “Wei Feng” section of the Shi Jing. See Cheng Junying and Jiang Jianyuan, Shijing zhuxi (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1991), pp. 155-157.

8. Lun Yu 1.15; Lunyu zhengyi, pp. 32-34. “Si” is Zigong's given name.

9. Xiang 29, Chunqiu zuozhuan zhu, pp. 1161-1166. In each instance of this passage, the description of the performance of the particular group of odes in question begins with the phrase “sang for him …” (wei zhi ge). They were likely performed to the accompaniment of qin or se zithers.

10. The term xing has a long history in the Chinese poetic tradition, listed as one of the six poetic meanings or techniques (liuyi, liushi) given in both the “Da xu” of Mao Heng's edition of the Shi Jing and the “Tai shi” section of the Zhou Li. The characteristic of xing, or “allusive imagery,” may be the use of poetic imagery to suggest, arouse, or inspire a certain sentiment, mood, or idea without actually constituting a direct or obvious metaphor. For Kong Zi, the Odes serve to inspire the learner to an appreciation of subtle or complex notions that lie beyond the reach of straighforward explanation.

    We might also mention the Odes as a source for the creative adaptation of tradition, as Hall and Ames have stressed: “The invocation of an appropriate allusion to some aspect of the cultural legacy introduces into a situation the authority of historical record and a prompting to perpetuate its wisdom. The ambiguity of the allusion provides the flexibility for negotiation and disclosure.” See David Hall and Roger Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), pp. 64-65.

11. The “Kong Zi shijia” of the Shi Ji records a story of how Kong Zi studied the qin under a certain Shi Xiang Zi. See Takigawa Kametaro, Shiji huizhu kaozheng, 2d ed. (reprint, Taipei: Hongye, 1987), pp. 736-737 (juan 47, pp. 48-49). In an episode of more reliable provenance (Lun Yu 17.20), Kong Zi is seen playing the se; see Lunyu zhengyi (17.17), pp. 699-700. Though I allude to the act of playing the qin zither below, the image of “perfection through Music” could just as well be applied to the performance of any other instrument.

12. See, for example, Lun Yu 11.24, in which the disciple Zeng Dian (Zeng Zi's father) casually strums the se zither (Lunyu zhengyi, pp. 466-482).

13. This is not to say that the effect of music on the listening audience was unimportant in Confucian thought; on the contrary, it was a subject treated with the utmost attention and gravity. It is only to suggest that the idea being stressed in this particular passage relates to the performative side of the musical act.

14. For an excellent discussion of the notion of skill mastery in the Ruist context, see the “Conclusion” to Robert Eno's work, The Confucian Creation of Heaven: Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), pp. 171-180. Eno describes Ruist sagehood as analyzable into “four major elements: (1) focus of concentration; (2) integration of phenomena; (3) a sense of total control; and (4) feelings of freedom and joy” (p. 175). All of these elements correspond quite nicely with concepts that I have elaborated upon in this study and in previous papers, all of which relate in one way or another to Ruist musical philosophy. It is indeed such notions, I believe, that represent the most engaging feature of Confucian thought—as will become clearer, I hope, in the course of this essay. I have also previously discussed a number of similar concepts in the context of Xun Zi's thought (i.e., the capacity of Music to bring the disparate into harmonious unity; Music, Ritual, and the transforming power of sages; the sage's ability to transcend standards and recognize similar types; the happiness of the noble man; etc.) in a paper presented at the Early China Seminar in Chicago in 1993 (“Motivation and Change in the Xun Zi”), much of which I have incorporated into chapter 7 of my Unity and Diversity.

    My understanding of Kong Zi's notion of harmonious mastery is also more or less concordant with the notion of “aesthetic order” put forth in the seminal work of David Hall and Roger Ames, Thinking Through Confucius. They, too, have recognized the importance of music in this regard: “Music for Confucius is an expressive medium for the kind of aesthetic order that can be achieved by a person in his community, a harmony consequent on a lifetime of cultivation, the full expression of his own personhood, and his virtuosic attunement to his world” (p. 280). Hall and Ames emphasize the creative aspect of such an order—the invention of “novel patterns” (p. 16), the “creative adaptation and extension” of meaning “to maximize the possibilities of one's own circumstances” (p. 47). But what I would like to emphasize here—and Hall and Ames would no doubt agree—is that one cannot adapt tradition properly and carry it forward creatively without first having embodied the patterns, rules, and constraints of that tradition within oneself, and in such a way that the very inclinations of the sagely individual are in fact determined by the patterns of the traditional order, so that he may extend, adapt, and creatively go beyond them while yet never once overstepping their “bounds.”

15. Lun Yu 2.4; Lunyu zhengyi, pp. 43-46.

16. T'ang Chün-yi, for one, centers his entire discussion of Kong Zi's philosophy, in the Yuan Dao chapters of his Zhongguo zhexue yuanlun (juan 1, 1971; rev. ed., Taipei: Xuesheng, 1986), on this single passage. See pp. 73-151 of that work.

17. Quoted above in connection with “achieving completion through Music.”

18. Lun Yu 6.9; Lunyu zhengyi (6.11), pp. 226-227. See also Lun Yu 7.15: “The Master said: ‘Eating course grains and drinking water, folding my arms to serve as a pillow—happiness lies amongst such things too. To be wealthy and noble through improper means—these are to me like floating clouds’” (Lunyu zhengyi [7.16], p. 267).

19. Lun Yu 6.18; Lunyu zhengyi (6.20), p. 235. The idea of “ultimate freedom through discipline” is a theme that would have a long and varied history in the Chinese tradition. It even reappears in Chan Buddhist circles, as in the Oxherding Pictures and Poems (Muniu tusong) of the eleventh century a.d., a series of drawings and poems which represent, through the imagery of an oxherd taming and tending an ox, the various stages in the path of self-discipline through which an aspiring monk must pass in order to reach enlightenment. In the first stage the “ox” is wild and free, but it is then captured and gradually disciplined by the herdboy in the subsequent stages. But by the last stage, ironically, the “ox” is once again set free to run its spontaneous course. The freedom of the final stage is, of course, a dialectically higher sort of freedom than that of the first stage, much like the freedom finally achieved by Kong Zi at age seventy, when he could “follow what his heart desired without transgressing the proper standards.” To be sure, the poems show a much greater “Daoist” (particularly Zhuang Zi) influence than anything else, but the notion of freedom through constraint is one first developed by Kong Zi. For the poems, see Du Songbo, Chanshi muniu tusong huibian (Taipei: Liming, 1983).

20. Specifically, passage 7.27 (4A.27), which describes the substance (shi) of knowledge (zhi), Ritual (li), and Music (yue) as various types of actions upon and attitudes toward the substance of the two basic virtues of humanity and propriety. It should not be surprising that the “substance of Music” lies in “finding happiness in” (le) these two—again playing on a common Ruist pun. See Mengzi zhengyi, pp. 532-534.

21. Cook, Unity and Diversity, pp. 277-291. Readers who might question any individual points in my translation should turn to the footnotes therein. The following translated portions are based on the text as given in Mengzi zhengyi, pp. 187-213.

22. Mengshi She zhi shou qi, you buru Zeng Zi zhi shou yue ye. I am obviously taking qi, “vital energy,” as the implied object of shou (“to guard over”) in the second half of the sentence, thus linking it naturally with the first half (qi should also be understood as the implied object indicated by the unspecified “[it]” of the previous line). The yue (“firmly”) here should not be taken as the object of shou, but rather as a kind of adverb of manner that serves as the aspect of comparison. My interpretation of these lines, which differs somewhat from more traditional readings, is explained and justified at great length in Cook, Unity and Diversity, pp. 20-21 n. 33. Let me simply note here that I take shou in the sense of to “guard over,” “keep in check”—wherein shou would refer to the “not letting the qi erupt forth” that occurs below in the passage. Beigong You's flaw was precisely his inability to keep his vital energy in check—he let it explode forth indiscriminately whenever something angered him. He was unable to channel his energy toward higher ends, preferring to meet death at the hands of some feudal lord rather than suffer the slightest insult. Mengshi She was somewhat better in this than he, since he was able to concentrate his energy on the battle before him and remain undisturbed by other considerations. He did not allow his energy to react to the prospects of winning or losing, and thus kept it directed toward the confrontation regardless. Yet only Zeng Zi (after Kong Zi) could lay claim to a true mastery of mind over vital energy—to the point where fearlessness was totally determined by and responsive to moral considerations. His was the truly great courage that became synonymous with moral uprightness—it was the courage to do what was right and not do what was wrong. It is in this sense, I believe, that Zeng Zi's ability to “keep a firm guard over his vital energy” is to be understood.

23. Following Wang Yangming (1472-1528), Mao Qiling (1623-1716), and others, I am taking zhi and ci in the senses of to “arrive” and to “set up camp”—a reading which preserves the military analogy suggested by the character shuai, “commander,” of the previous line. Zhao Qi's (a.d.?-201?) more obvious interpretation of the two characters as “primary” and “secondary,” however, works equally well.

24. Following Zhao Qi, I understand bao in the sense of “recklessly unleashing joy or anger upon others,” to let one's qi “erupt forth”—referring to the type of relative lack of self-control exhibited by such a figure as Beigong You, and tying back to the idea of “keeping guard over one's vital energy,” which is achieved precisely by “maintaining one's mind's intent.” Jeffrey Riegel makes a good case for taking the character in the sense of to “desiccate,” which also resonates well with other parts of the passage (“Reflections on an Unmoved Mind: An Analysis of Mencius 2A2,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 47 [3], Thematic Issue S [September 1980]: 433-457). For my reasons on choosing the former reading, however, see Cook, Unity and Diversity, pp. 22-23 n. 36.

25. The term hao was used to describe a large abundance of water, sometimes used in the descriptions of floods. Since the term haoran zhi qi is not to be understood as something out of control, going beyond its banks, I have chosen to translate haoran as “full-flowing” rather than the oft-used rendering “flood-like.” Zhu Xi gives us the image of a great river like the Yangtze or Yellow rushing vastly and resolutely along its course, and describes it as a kind of metaphor for daring boldness or courageous fortitude. See Zhuzi yulei, (Song editor Li Jingde), ed. Wang Xingxian (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1984), vol. 4, p. 1243.

26. Several scholars have argued for this affiliation of Gao Zi with the Mohist school, including Liang Qichao, Ch'ien Mu (Xian Qin zhuzi xinian, p. 186), and T'ang Chün-yi (Yuan Dao, pt. 1, pp. 210-211). For details, see Cook, Unity and Diversity, pp. 292-293 nn. 87, 90; for a contrary view, see Eno, Confucian Creation, pp. 114-116.

27. T'ang Chün-yi, Zhongguo zhexue yuanlun, Yuan Dao pian, pt. 1, pp. 160-161.

28. T'ang Chün-yi, Yuan Dao, pt. 1, pp. 251-252. A good example of yan used in such a way may be found elsewhere in the Meng Zi (6.9 [3B.9]), “The doctrines (/words) of Yang Zhu and Mo Di fill the world.” David Nivison also takes yan in this sense, and his reading here turns out to be remarkably similar to that of T'ang Chün-yi (The Ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese Philosophy [Open Court, forthcoming], pp. 35-36). Nivison further describes Gao Zi as a sort of “ethical voluntarist”: “He assumes that he creates his character simply by resolving to act in a certain way; that he can add a cubit to his nature, nay, give it its form, simply by taking thought” (p. 44).

29. This central distinction between the notions of Meng Zi and Gao Zi might best be summed up by reference to passage 8.19 (4B.19) of the Meng Zi, which describes Shun as one who “acted through humanity and propriety; it is not that he carried out humanity and propriety.”

30. Chapter 33—“Those who know others are wise; those who know themselves are clear-sighted”—is just one of many examples in the Dao De Jing where knowledge is presented to the reader as a good thing to have. As is typical of a kind of double standard of applicability in the philosophy of the Dao De Jing, it is only the ruler's subjects who are, in the best of scenarios, to be denied knowledge, as in chapter 3 of that work: “the people are caused constantly to be without knowledge or desires, so that the knowledgeable dare not to act” (for more examples of both types, see Cook, Unity and Diversity, pp. 307-308). Knowledge, in short, is something one would like to have as an edge over others, though displaying it as such serves only to defeat its purpose. Zhuang Zi would, at first sight at least, appear to go a step further and treat knowledge as a source of downfall not only insofar as it is given to argumentative display, or insofar as it is owned by others, but to the extent that the protagonist himself possesses it as well.

31. Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, p. 136. For annotations to this and other Zhuang Zi translations, refer to chapter 6 of Cook, Unity and Diversity.

32. I am assuming a standard chronology that places the compilation of the Dao De Jing prior to the inner chapters of the Zhuang Zi.

33. Zhuangzi jishi, p. 139. This use of the terms ming and shi should not be confused with the common use of the same terms in other pre-Qin texts to denote the appropriate use of names (ming) as accurate representations of the true realities (shi) lying behind them.

34. The ruler should seek to have the same type of renown as Heaven (chap. 2), whose merit (gong) is everlasting precisely because it is not “dwelled in” (fu wei fu ju, shiyi bu qu) and thus somehow looked up to by all while coveted by none. For a detailed treatment of this pervasive theme of “taking by giving away” in the Dao De Jing, see Cook, Unity and Diversity, chap. 4.

35. The very end of this passage mentions how such sage-rulers of old as Yao and Shun were able, through “putting mind and knowledge on the outside,” to transform the myriad things in their realm. This is reminiscent of the wu wei er wu bu wei (“carrying on with no purpose yet having no purpose not carried out”) of the Dao De Jing. Yet in this Zhuang Zi chapter, these rulers do not set out to achieve an everlasting rule so much as they simply find themselves in the position and react accordingly (“lodge in what cannot be avoided [yu yu budeyi], then you will almost be there”). See Zhuangzi jishi, pp. 148, 150. Compare also the use of such terms in the opening sections of the “Xiaoyaoyou” chapter, which concludes with the line: “Thus it is said, ‘The ultimate man has no self, the spiritual man has no merit, the sagely man has no renown’” (Zhuangzi jishi, p. 17).

36. “Whence do I know that to take delight in life is not delusion? Whence do I know that to despise death is not [like] one who, losing his home as a child, does not know to return to it?” (“Qiwu-lun,” expressed through the mouth of Changwu Zi, Zhuangzi jishi, pp. 103-105).

37. See also the following lines, repeated twice in the “Dazongshi” chapter: “For the Great Clump loads me up with a form, toils me with life, relaxes me with old age, and rests me with death. Thus the making good of my life is none other than that by which I make good of my death” (Zhuangzi jishi, pp. 242-243, 262-264).

38. To quote just one: “These are those which bring hardships upon their lives because of their abilities; they are thus unable to live to the end of their natural years and are stricken down mid-way” (Zhuangzi jishi, “Renjianshi,” p. 172). Identical expressions appear also elsewhere in “Renjianshi” (Zhuangzi jishi, pp. 177, 180), and in “Dazongshi” (p. 224). Similar expressions occur also in “Ying-diwang” (p. 224), as well as in the “outer chapters” “Shan mu” (pp. 667-668) and “Dasheng” (p. 664).

39. “Xiaoyaoyou,” Zhuangzi jishi, p. 40.

40. According to Qing dynasty scholars Duan Yucai (1735-1815) and Zhu Junsheng (1788-1858), the character du (here glossed, following Guo Xiang, as simply “center”) is a loan for du, the stitch running down the center of the back of the upper garment. This reading would appear to be supported by the appearance of the same character in one of the Mawangdui Huang-Lao texts, “Dao Fa”: “[The Dao] Vacuous and without form, its central axis shrouded in darkness (qi du mingming), [it is] that from which the myriad things are born” (Jing Fa, p. 1 [of main text], lines 4-5). Wang Fuzhi (1619-1692) takes the du of the Zhuang Zi passage as a medical term, referring, as I understand it, to the spinal cord. In any event, the idea of following something central exists in all the interpretations. See Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan, Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan Lishi Yuyan Yanjiusuo, monograph no. 88 (Taipei, 1988), p. 101; Wang Fuzhi, Zhuangzi jie (a.d. 1709), ed. Wang Xiaoyu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1964), pp. 30-31.

41. Zhuangzi jishi, p. 115.

42. I will give an alternate, and preferable, interpretation of these lines shortly.

43. On one level, the minds of the people are to be “made empty” while their “bellies made full” (xu qi xin, shi qi fu) (chap. 3), while on another, the ideal attitude one should have toward the world in general is to “extend vacuity to the utmost, and maintain stillness resolutely” (zhi xu ji, shou jing du) (chap. 16). Even the Dao itself is described thus: “Between Heaven and Earth, is it not like a bellows?! Vacuous, yet not to be exhausted, it comes out with more upon each motion. With verbosity, one is bound for exhaustion—it would be better to hold to the middle (shou zhong)” (chap. 5). Notice the similarity of these lines to the Zhuang Zi: both the notions of vacuity and “holding onto the middle” (“following the central”) are in each case portrayed as the wise and safe way to go about things.

44. Following Yu Yue's emendation of switching the positions of ting and er, which seems to be the way Cheng Xuanying's edition had it.

45. Zhuangzi jishi, pp. 147-148.

46. It may be somewhat reckless to assume, as some do, that much of Zhuang Zi's philosophy was written in response to Meng Zi. Zhuang Zi (ca. 365-ca. 285) was a younger contemporary of Meng Zi, about twenty years apart, by Ch'ien Mu's dating. Given that their paths may never have crossed, it is possible that Zhuang Zi had barely more than heard of Meng Zi's name, of which, indeed, Zhuang Zi never makes mention. As Hsü Fu-kuan puts it, this would be quite understandable given the difficulties of travel and the slow circulation of books in those days. My sense is that while Zhuang Zi probably did know of Meng Zi, given a mere twenty-year age differential it is a near certainty that the former's philosophy was fully mature by the time the latter began to attract a large following of disciples; it is thus difficult to conceive that Zhuang Zi's way of thinking could in any way have formed in response to that of Meng Zi. As Fung Yu-lan puts it, it is likely that Zhuang Zi thought of Meng Zi generally as just another follower of Kong Zi. See Hsü Fu-kuan, Zhongguo renxing lunshi, Xian Qin pian (Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu, 1969), p. 362; Fung Yu-lan, Zhongguo zhexueshi, vol. 1 (1930; enl. ed., Taipei: Shangwu, 1944), pp. 278-279.

47. Under the impression that I was the only one to have discovered the apparent connection between the two passages, I had even begun to suspect that I might have been making too much of it. In a recent conversation with Bryan van Norden, however, I learned that David Nivison had been doing work on the same observation. Nivison's work will appear in the second chapter of a forthcoming book of his, titled The Ways of Confucianism; I would like to thank Bryan van Norden for providing me with a copy of this chapter, of which I have already made note above. Nivison says, “I have even allowed myself to suspect that this dialogue may be a conscious and deliberate Daoist retort to the Gongsun Chou piece” (p. 37). Nivison's cautious words are well chosen, given the caveat of the previous footnote; one does, however, get that “suspicion.” It also turns out, as noted above, that Nivison's view of Gao Zi's position and school affiliation is quite similar to that portrayed in this study (here following T'ang Chün-yi, Ch'ien Mu, and others).

48. Zhuangzi jishi, “Yingdiwang,” p. 307.

49. Ibid., “Dechongfu,” p. 193.

50. See ibid., pp. 190-191.

51. See ibid., p. 199.

52. See Zhuangzi jishi, “Renjianshi,” p. 160.

53. On “Butcher Ding” (pao ding): the term pao, originally referring to the wrapping of meat, came to refer more generally to the kitchen. Ding, here transliterated as a proper name, can also simply mean “[menial] worker.” Lord Wen-Hui is said to refer to King Hui of Liang (Wei) (r. 370-319 b.c.), an elder contemporary of Zhuang Zi. For more detailed annotations to this translation, see Cook, Unity and Diversity, pp. 326-330.

54. These are reconstructions of the Old Chinese pronunciations for the two characters to the left, both of which have the modern Chinese pronunciation of “huo” (fourth tone)—presumably the sound that modern-day oxen make when they are being dismembered. According to (Jin) Sima Biao (d. ca. 305), the former (OC *hwek) is the sound of flesh and bone being separated, whereas (Tang) Cheng Xuanying suggests that the butcher's knife has jingling bells attached to it. As for the latter character (OC *hwrek), (Jin) Cui Zhuan says this is a sound louder than the former, and presumably the sound of bones popping apart at the joints (all Old Chinese renderings given in this study are written according to the system of William Baxter, A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology [Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992]). The rhythm and musicality of this passage is worth noting; not only is the sound of the butchering said to accord with famous musical pieces, but the poetic description itself almost makes us imagine that we were there listening to it firsthand.

55. The Mulberry Forest (Sanglin) was, according to Sima Biao, the name of a sacrificial musical piece of Tang, the founder of the Shang dynasty. According to sources quoted by Qing dynasty scholar Sun Yirang, this was the piece of music performed for Tang as he offered himself in sacrifice while praying to the spirits at Sanglin for relief from the drought that was crippling his state. See Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan, p. 104, Jingshou, according to both Sima Biao and Xiang Xiu (ca. a.d. 221-300), was the name of a movement within the composition Xianchi, associated with the legendary sage-ruler Yao.

56. The character quan (entire) is added here in the Zhao jianyi edition, probably spuriously.

57. Note that the term yu, encounter, has the sense of “to meet up with unexpectedly,” whereas the term shi connotes “looking over” or “inspecting with the eyes.” In a different sense, we might also recall the words of chapter 11 of the Dao De Jing: “the sage acts for the sake of the belly and not the eye,” and the connection of “the eye” with “knowledge” (zhi) in that work.

58. Xiang Xiu's annotations, quoted by Lu Deming (a.d. 550-630), are worth noting: “Going into action only after giving full confidence to what is overseen [by the sense organs] and observed (zhuan suo sicha erhou dong) is called ‘sense (=“office”) apprehension.’” A guan is an office or official charged with overseeing a specific area and its duties, and thus the sense organs, which in a sense are the offices of external apprehension that serve the mind, are referred to in ancient Chinese by this term. Zhi is taken as a noun; to take it verbally would be odd and forced, since it is hard to conceive of sense organs “knowing” to do anything. This being the case, the character yu (desire) must also be treated as part of a nominal compound if we are to pay any attention to the strong parallelism of the line “guanzhi stops and shenyu goes” (yu can often function as an auxiliary verb in the sense of “want to,” “be on the verge of,” etc.). On shenyu (spiritual desire), Xiang writes: “To let the hands go free and set intention loose, and to attain [something] without a [deliberate] mind (zong shou fang yi, wuxin er de), is called ‘spiritual desire’” (Zhuangzi jishi, p. 120). It should be noted, however, that neither guanzhi nor shenyu constitute set terms, as this appears to be their only appearance in the Zhuang Zi; they are determined to be compounds here on the basis of contextual and literary considerations alone.

59. As to the question of “why nineteen years?” I believe Wang Fuzhi answered it well: “Ten years is a round figure, and the additional nine years serves to suggest great duration” (Wang Fuzhi, Zhuangzi jie, p. 31). The number nine commonly represented large quantities in general, while nineteen years is surely much more suggestive of long duration than simply nine years. Another possible explanation is that this is an allusion to the Metonic cycle: a nineteen-year cycle after which the new moon occurs on the same day of the year as at the beginning of the cycle. I thank one of the anonymous readers of this essay for that information.

60. Graham's translation here is worth considering: “my gaze settles on it” (A. C. Graham, Chuang-tzu: The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings from the Book of Chuang-tzu [London: Allen and Unwin, 1981], p. 64). This is in line with (Jin) Guo Xiang's interpretation: “[He] does not further cast his eyes upon other things” (Zhuangzi jishi, p. 123).

61. I follow Wu Kuang-ming (following Akatsuka Tadashi) in punctuating after chouchu (“to teeter,” “pace back and forth”) (Kuang-ming Wu, The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990], p. 295). Note the line from the outer chapter “Tian Zifang”: fang jiang chouchu, fang jiang sigu (Zhuangzi jishi, p. 727).

62. According to Guo Xiang, this means that he wipes it off and puts it in its sheath (Zhuangzi jishi, p. 124). The character cang is probably also significant: it may refer to the notion of concealing one's self, or perhaps even, as Wang Fuzhi would have it, be suggestive of death.

63. Zhuangzi jishi, pp. 117-124.

64. This is a reading first suggested to me by A. C. Graham's translation of the line: “my life flows between confines, but knowledge has no confines” (Chuang-tzu, p. 62). Despite this clever and fortuitous translation, however, Graham appears to have little appreciation of how this passage relates to the Butcher Ding story—he even feels the need to transplant whole sections of miscellaneous chapters to the point in between the two passages to make the chapter “more complete.”

65. Titled Shao. It is there stated that after hearing it, Kong Zi was “for three months unaware of the taste of meat.” I do not mean to imply that Zhuang Zi's choice of the image of butchering to convey his ideas had anything to do with this statement, but you never know.

66. I may not be the first to have noticed this similarity. It seems to be implied in Guo Xiang's note: “The organs of observation are abandoned, the mind is let free and one follows along the grain” (zong xin er shun li). Cheng Xuanying then makes it more explicit: “Following what his mind desires (cong xin suo yu), he proceeds by following along the grain. The meaning is likewise for those who are good at nurturing life” (Zhuangzi jishi, p. 120 n. 5). It should also be noted that it was common in Six Dynasties interpretations of the Lun Yu passage to read cong as zong (see, for example, Huang Kan's [488-545] shu), and to parse the line after xin, reading “At age seventy, I let my mind free, and what I desired did not transgress the proper standards” (qishi er zong xin, suo yu bu yu ju)—this appears to have been the reading followed by Guo. See Cheng Shude (1877-1944), Lunyu jishi (1942; Cheng Junying and Jiang Jianyuan, eds., Beijing: Zhonghua, 1990), pp. 76-77.

67. See the opening section of the “Dechongfu” chapter, Zhuangzi jishi, pp. 187-196.

An earlier version of this essay was presented at the fifth annual Midwest Early China Seminar held at the University of Chicago on May 26-28, 1995. I would like to thank Robert Eno and Edward Shaughnessy for the many helpful comments and suggestions they made at that time. I would also like to thank the two anonymous Philosophy East and West readers, whose highly constructive reviews did much to improve the quality of this essay. The present essay is to some extent a distillation of material first presented in chapters 2, 5, and 6 of my Ph.D. dissertation, Unity and Diversity in the Musical Thought of Warring States China (University of Michigan [1995]; Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1996), where the same argument is to be found in highly extended form and with much greater depth of annotation; readers interested in more details are directed there. I must also thank those who made the dissertation possible: Professors Kenneth J. DeWoskin, Shuen-fu Lin, Donald J. Munro, Martin J. Powers, and William H. Baxter, each of whom lent significant input; and the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China, who generously funded much of the research.