by An Liu
16.60
You rely on a matchmaker to bring about a marriage, but you cannot rely on the matchmaker to make the marriage successful.
You rely on people to relate to one another, but you cannot rely on people to be close.
16.61
If people’s actions correspond and their inclinations45 are the same, even if they are separated by a thousand li, they can follow one another.
If people’s inclinations are not the same and their actions differ, even though their gates face one another, they will not communicate [with one another].
16.62
Though the waters of the sea are vast, it does not accept carrion and weeds.46
The sun and moon do not respond to things not of the same qi [as themselves];
the Superior Man does not associate with those not of his own type.
16.63
People do not love the hand of [the legendary master artisan] Chui, but they do love their own fingers.
People do not love the pearls of the Yangzi and the Han rivers, but they do love their own belt hooks.
16.64
You might mistake a bundle of firewood for a ghost
or fire and smoke for an emanation [of qi].
If you mistake the firewood for a ghost, you [might] turn and run away;
if you mistake smoke for an emanation you [might] kill a pig and boil a dog [as sacrifices].
To prejudge things like this is not as good as reflecting about them later.
16.65
A skillful workman is good at measuring things carefully.
A knowledgeable person is good at preparing [for future possibilities].
16.66
When [the great archer] Yi was killed [in an ambush] by [men wielding] peach-wood clubs, he had no chance to shoot [his arrows].
When [the mighty wrestler] Qingji was killed by swords and spears, he had no chance to grapple [with his attackers].47
16.67
Someone who wanted to put a stop to slander went from door to door saying, “I really did not have an affair with my elder sister-in law!” The slander increased more and more.
Trying to stop words with more words
or affairs with more affairs
is like making piles of dirt to ward off dust
or using armloads of firewood to douse a fire.
Spouting words to expunge slander is like using black dye to clean something white.
16.68
An arrow at ten paces will pierce rhino-hide armor. At three hundred paces, it cannot even pierce the plain white silk of Lu.48
The great horse Qiji can travel a thousand li in a day, but when he has used [his strength] to the utmost and the harness is taken off, he collapses.
16.69
If a great family attacks a small family, that is taken to be oppression;
if a great state annexes a small state, that is taken to be worthiness.
16.70
Little horses are in the same category as big horses,
[but] petty knowledge is not in the same category as great knowledge.
16.71
To wear sheepskin and labor for wages is quite ordinary;
to wear leopardskin and carry a bamboo basket [like a laborer] would be very strange.
16.72
To use what is pure and white to do something filthy and disgusting is like bathing and then mucking out a pigsty, or perfuming oneself with artemisia and then carrying a pig to market.
16.73
If you treat an abscess and do not distinguish between the good [flesh] and the bad and repulsive flesh but merely cut it all off,
or if you till the fields and do not distinguish between sprouts and weeds and simply hoe indiscriminately,
would this not be fruitless?
16.74
To spoil a pond to seek a turtle,
to wreck a house to look for a fox,
to dig up [the floor of] a room to search for a mouse,
to cut off the lips to cure a toothache:
These are the ways of [the tyrant] Jie and [Robber] Zhi. A Superior Man does not do this.
16.74a
To kill a warhorse but catch a fox,
to acquire two ordinary turtles and lose a divine tortoise,
to chop off the right arm but struggle for a single hair,
to break the [legendary sword] Moye to struggle for an [ordinary] carving knife:
How can using knowledge in this way suffice to be called lofty?
16.75
It is preferable to be pricked with a needle a hundred times than to be slashed by a knife just once.
It is preferable to pull something heavy just once than carry something light for a long time.
It is preferable to eat sparingly for a month than to starve for ten days.
For ten thousand to stumble is better than for one to fall into a pit.
16.76
There was a person who praised someone for working well beyond capacity, hulling grain until sunrise. But still the quota was not filled, and so it was as if the person deserved censure. When the case was investigated, it was discovered that the person [who did the work and was fraudulently praised] was his mother. Thus when petty people praise others, it can be harmful instead.49
16.77
In a family to the east, the mother died. Her son cried but was not sorrowful. A son from a family to the west saw this and returned home to his mother, saying, “Mother, why don’t you die right away? I would certainly cry very sorrowfully for you!”
Now if someone really wants his mother to die, if she did die, he certainly would not be able to cry sorrowfully for her.
[Likewise,] if someone says, “I have no free time to study,” even if he had free time, he would still not be able to study.
16.78
You might see a hollow log floating and understand how to make a boat
or see flying leaves spinning in the air and understand how to make a cart [wheel]
or see a bird scratching and understand how to write characters:
This is to acquire things by means of correlative categories.
16.79
Taking what is not right to do right;
taking what is not proper to do [what is] proper:
This is like
running naked to chase a madman,
robbing things to give them to beggars,
stealing bamboo strips to write laws on them,
squatting to recite the Odes and the Documents.
16.80
If broken and cast aside, [the great sword] Moye could not [even] cut meat.
Grasped tightly and not released, a [hair from a] horse’s tail cuts jade.
The sage has no [unvarying] stopping point or starting point. [He regards] this year as worthier than the past and today as better than yesterday.
16.81
A horse that looks like a deer could be worth a thousand pieces of gold, but there is no deer in the world worth a thousand pieces of gold.
Jade must be worked on with grit to become an object of art.50
There are jade disks worth a thousand pieces of gold, but no grit is worth even a trifling amount.
16.82
If you get light through a crack [in the wall], it can illuminate a corner;
if you get light from a window, it can illuminate the north wall;
if you get light from a doorway, it can illuminate everything in the room, omitting nothing.
How much more [would be illuminated] if the light received were from the whole universe! There would be nothing in the world it did not illuminate.
Looking at things in this way,
if what you get [light from] is small, what you see is shallow;
if what you get [light from] is large, what is illuminated is vast!
16.83
The Yangzi River issues from the Min Mountains;
the Yellow River issues from Kunlun;
the Ji River issues from Wangwu;
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br /> the Ying River issues from Shaoshi;
the Han River issues from Bozhong.
Flowing separately, eddying or rushing, they eventually empty into the Eastern Sea.
[The places] from where they flow are different;
[the place] to which they return is one.
16.84
Those who are penetrating in their studies are like the axle of a cart. Within the turning wheel hubs, it does not itself move, but with it one travels a thousand li. Ending [its rotation, the wheel] begins again, turning like an inexhaustible stream.
Those who are not penetrating in their studies are like [one who is] confused and muddled. If you tell him [the location of] east, west, south and north, when he is standing there he is clear about them, but when he turns his back he does not get it. He does not understand the crux of the matter.
16.85
Cold cannot produce cold;
heat cannot produce heat.
What is not cold or not hot can produce cold and heat. Thus what has form comes from the formless, and the not-yet-Heaven-and-Earth gave birth to Heaven and Earth—how profoundly subtle and expansively vast it is!
16.86
The falling of the rain cannot soak anything. Only when it stops [by hitting something] can it soak anything.
The shooting of an arrow cannot pierce anything. Only when it stops [by hitting something] can it pierce anything.
Only stopping can stop all stoppings.
16.86a
In accord with the high ground, you build a terrace.
Following low ground, you dig a pond.
In each case one follows its natural tendency; one does not dare do more.
16.87
The way in which sages uses things is like
using red ribbon to tie up straw dogs,
making earthen dragons to seek rain.
Straw dogs: he uses them to seek prosperity.
Clay dragons: he uses them to obtain food.
16.88
A man from Lu was good at making hats; his wife was good at making cloth shoes. When they went [south] to Yue, they became greatly distressed and impoverished.
To take skill to a place where it cannot be used is like
planting lotuses on a mountaintop,
or cultivating a fire within a well;
grasping fishing tackle and climbing a mountain,
or shouldering an ax and entering an abyss.
It is hard to get what one wants like this.
To take a chariot to [the marshy land of] Yue
Or ride a raft to [the dry land of] the Hu:
Though you may have an inexhaustible desire [to do these things], you will not be able to accomplish them.
16.89
The king of Chu had a white ape. When the king himself shot at it, the ape grabbed his arrows to show off. He ordered Yang Youji51 to shoot it. When [Yang] began to draw the bow and aim the arrow, [even] before he shot, the ape hugged a tree and shrieked.
This is hitting the target before hitting the target.
16.90
As for [ritual emblems like] the jade disk of Mr. He and the jade half-disk of the Xiahou clan,52 if [courtiers] bow courteously and advance with them, they create harmony and amity. [But] at night because of thieves, they create resentment. Such is the difference between the right time and the wrong time.
16.91
When one paints [a picture] of the face of Xi Shi, it is beautiful but cannot please;
when one draws with a compass the eyes of Meng Ben, they are large but cannot inspire awe;
What rules form53 is missing from them.
16.92
There are people such as elder and younger brothers who divide things between themselves without measuring. The multitudes praise the Rightness of that. This can only [be called] “measureless”; therefore it cannot be obtained through measurement.
16.93
Ascending a high place makes people want to look out;
approaching a deep place makes people want to peer down.
The location makes this so.
Archery makes people precise.
Fishing makes people circumspect.
The activity makes this so.
16.94
If someone said that by killing a worn-out ox we could avert the death of a good horse, nobody would do it. If an ox is killed, the one who kills it will be executed. To face certain execution in order to redeem a death that might not occur—there has never been anyone able to act in this way.54
16.95
The Jisun clan55 took control of the ducal house. Confucius was pleased. He first went along with what the Jisun did and later entered the government under them. He said: “To use the bent to make something straight—what’s wrong with that? To use the straight to make something bent—that’s a policy that cannot be followed.”
This is called following different paths to the same wickedness.
16.96
When the majority are crooked, they cannot tolerate the straight;
when the majority are bent, they cannot tolerate the upright.
Thus,
when people are in the majority, they eat wolves;
when wolves are in the majority, they eat people.
16.97
Those who want to be evil must seem to shine forth their uprightness;
those who want to be crooked must seem to establish their straightness.
From ancient times to the present, for the Public Way to not be established and for private desires to achieve currency has never been heard of [except through] taking the good and entrusting it to the wicked.
16.98
Popular rumor is like a forest:
it flies without wings.
If three people say there is a tiger in the market,
the whole village will turn out to chase it.
16.99
[Animals] that float and sink do not try to wash or bathe; it is already enough for them to be in the middle of the water.
Thus,
animals that eat grass do not rush to change their pastures;
insects that live in water do not rush to change their rivers.
They may carry out small alterations, but they do not stray from their constant habits.
16.100
There are false beliefs;
there are breaches of propriety.
Wei Sheng died under the pillars of a bridge.56 This was a case of a belief being false.
Mr. Kong [Kong Bo] did not mourn the death of his repudiated mother. This was a case of propriety being breached.57
16.101
Zengzi took his stand on filial piety. He would not walk past a village called Defeated Mother.
Mozi opposed music. He would not enter the city of Courtsong.58
Confucius59 took his stand on incorruptibility. He would not drink from Robbers’ Well.
This is what is called “nourishing the will.”
16.102
[Tyrant] Djou used ivory chopsticks and Jizi sighed;
the people of Lu used figurines in burials and Confucius sighed.
Thus sages see frost and anticipate ice.
16.103
When birds are about to arrive, people spread out nets to await them. What catches the bird is a single eye of the net, but a single-eyed net will never catch a bird.60
Now a person who dons armor prepares for an arrow to strike him. If he knew for sure where the arrow would hit, he could wear just one tiny scale of armor.
Matters sometimes cannot be measured beforehand;
things sometimes cannot be foreseen.
Thus sages cultivate the Way and await the right time.
16.104
A homely piebald cow, hornless and tailless, still had her nose pierced and was put in a halter. She gave birth to a calf, and it was sacrificed. When the impersonator of the dead and the invoker carried out the sacrificial ceremony and drowned it in the river, would the Earl of the Yellow River61 be ashame
d of its origin and refuse the sacrifice?
16.105
Acquiring an army of ten thousand men does not compare to hearing one word that is apposite;
acquiring the pearl of the marquis of Sui does not compare to understanding from whence events arise.
Acquiring the jade disk of Mr. Gua62 does not compare to understanding where events will lead.
16.106
One who selects a fine steed does not use it to chase a fox or a raccoon dog if he is preparing to shoot a deer or a stag.
One who sharpens a sword with a whetstone does not use it to cut plain silk robes if he is preparing to slash rhino-hide armor.
Thus,
“With high mountains he looks to the summit,
with scenic byways he travels to the end.”63
What this [ode] refers to is such a person.
16.106a
To see a crossbow pellet and expect a roast owl;
to see an egg and expect dawn to end the night;
to see a hemp seed and expect finished cloth:
although there is a principle here, still one cannot hasten the sunset.
16.107
If an elephant loses its tusks, it does not begrudge the person who profits from them;64
if a person dies and leaves behind his bed mat, he does not resent the person who takes it.
If a person is able to use what is of no benefit [to others] to benefit himself, that is permissible.
16.108
A madman runs to the east. The person pursuing him also runs to the east. They are the same in running to the east, but the reasons why they are running to the east are different.
A drowning person enters the water. The person rescuing him also enters the water. They are the same in entering the water, but the reasons why they are entering the water are different.
Thus,
sages equate life and death;
fools also equate life and death.
Sages equate life and death because they fully comprehend the rationale of making distinctions;
fools equate life and death because they do not know where benefit and harm lie.
16.109
On account of Humaneness and Rightness, King Yan of Xu lost his state. [But] losing a state is not necessarily due to Humaneness and Rightness.