The Huainanzi
Page 112
3. Le Blanc and Mathieu 2003, chap. 21, translate “Yao lüe” as “Sommaire.”
4. Kern, “Western Han Aesthetics,” 389–407.
5. Again, we are grateful to Martin Kern (private communication) for sharing his insights into the rhyme-scheme of this passage. The rhymes are (1) zhen and geng (a “combined rhyme”), (2) zheng , (3) yuan , and (4) hou and wu (a “combined rhyme”).
6. For detailed analyses of these and other important aspects of the Huainanzi ’s postscript, see Sarah A. Queen, “Inventories of the Past: Rethinking the ‘School’ Affiliation of the Huainanzi,” Asia Major, 3rd ser., 14, no. 1 (2001): 51–72; and Judson B. Murray, “A Study of ‘Yao lue’ , ‘A Summary of the Essentials’: Understanding the Huainanzi Through the Point of View of the Author of the Postface,” Early China 29 (2004): 45–108, and “The Consummate Dao: The ‘Way’ (Dao) and ‘Human Affairs’ (shi) in the Huainanzi ” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 2007), esp. 58–121.
Twenty-One
21.1
We have created and composed these writings and discourses as a means to
knot the net of the Way and its Potency
and weave the web of humankind and its affairs,1
above investigating them in Heaven,
below examining them on Earth,
and in the middle comprehending them through patterns.2
Although they are not yet able to draw out fully the core of the Profound Mystery, they are abundantly sufficient to observe its ends and beginnings.3 If we [only] summarized the essentials or provided an overview and our words did not discriminate the Pure, Uncarved Block and differentiate the Great Ancestor, then it would cause people in their confusion to fail to understand them. Thus,
numerous are the words we have composed
and extensive are the illustrations we have provided,
yet we still fear that people will depart from the root and follow the branches.
Thus,
if we speak of the Way but do not speak of affairs,
there would be no means to shift with4 the times.
[Conversely],
if we speak of affairs but do not speak of the Way,
there would be no means to move with5 [the processes of] transformation.
Therefore we composed [the book’s] twenty essays [as follows]:
It has “Originating in the Way,”
it has “Activating the Genuine,”
it has “Celestial Patterns,”
it has “Terrestrial Forms,”
it has “Seasonal Rules,”
it has “Surveying Obscurities,”
it has “Quintessential Spirit,”
it has “The Basic Warp,”
it has “The Ruler’s Techniques,”
it has “Profound Precepts,”
it has “Integrating Customs,”
it has “Responses of the Way,”
it has “Boundless Discourses,”
it has “Sayings Explained,”
it has “An Overview of the Military,”
it has “A Mountain of Persuasions,”
it has “A Forest of Persuasions,”
it has “Among Others,”
it has “Cultivating Effort,”
[and] it has “The Exalted Lineage.”6 [21/223/21–28]
21.2
“Originating in the Way”
[begins with] the six coordinates contracted7 and compressed
and the myriad things chaotic and confused.
[It then] diagrams the features of the Grand
One and fathoms the depths of the Dark Unseen,
thereby soaring beyond the frame8 of Empty Nothingness.
By relying on the small, it embraces the great;
by guarding the contracted, it orders the expansive.
It enables you to understand
the bad or good fortune of taking the lead or following behind
and the benefit or harm of taking action or remaining still.
If you sincerely comprehend its import, floodlike, you can achieve a grand vision.
If you desire a single expression to awaken to it:
“Revere the heavenly and preserve your genuineness.”
If you desire a second expression to comprehend it:
“Devalue things and honor your person.”
If you desire a third expression to fathom it:
“Externalize desires and return to your genuine dispositions.”
If you grasp its main tenets,
inwardly you will harmonize the Five Orbs
and enrich the flesh and skin.
If you adhere to its models and standards
and partake of them to the end of your days,
they will provide the means
to respond and attend to the myriad aspects of the world
and observe and accompany its manifold alterations,
as if rolling a ball in the palm of your hand.
Surely it will suffice to make you joyous! [21/224/1–5]
“Activating the Genuine” exhaustively traces the transformation [of things] from their ends to their beginnings;
infuses and fills the essence of Something and Nothing;
distinguishes and differentiates the alterations of the myriad things;
unifies and equates the forms of death and life.
It enables you to
know to disregard things and return to the self;
investigate the distinctions between Humaneness and Rightness;
comprehend the patterns of identity and difference;
observe the guiding thread of Utmost Potency;
and know the binding cords of alterations and transformations.
Its explanations tally with the core of the Profound Mystery
and comprehend9 the mother of creation and transformation. [21/224/7–9]
“Celestial Patterns” provides the means by which to
harmonize the qi of yin and yang,
order the radiances of the sun and moon,
regulate the seasons of opening [spring/summer] and closing [fall/winter],
tabulate the movements of the stars and planets,
know the permutations of [their] retrograde and proper motion,
avoid the misfortunes associated with prohibitions and taboos,
follow the responses of the seasonal cycles,
and imitate the constancy of the Five Gods.
It enables you to
possess the means to gaze upward to Heaven and uphold what to follow
and thereby avoid disordering Heaven’s regularities. [21/224/11–12]
“Terrestrial Forms” provides the means by which to
encompass the length from north to south,
reach the breadth from east to west,
survey the topography of the mountains and hillocks,
demarcate the locations of the rivers and valleys,
illuminate the master of the myriad things,
know the multitude of categories of living things,
tabulate the enumerations of mountains and chasms,
and chart the roadways far and near.
It enables you to
circulate comprehensively and prepare exhaustively,
so that you cannot be roused by things
or startled by oddities. [21/224/14–16]
“Seasonal Rules” provides the means by which to
follow Heaven’s seasons above,
use Earth’s resources below,
determine standards and implement correspondences,
aligning them with human norms.
It is formed into twelve sections to serve as models and guides.
Ending and beginning anew,
they repeat limitlessly,
adapting, complying, imitating, and according
in predicting bad and good fortune.
Taking and giving, opening and closing,
each has its prohibited days,
issuing commands and
administering orders,
instructing and warning according to the season.
[It] enables the ruler of humankind to know the means by which to manage affairs. [21/224/18–20]
“Surveying Obscurities” provides the means by which to discuss
Utmost Essence penetrating the Nine Heavens,
Utmost Subtlety sinking into the Formless,
Unblemished Purity entering Utmost Clarity,
and Luminous Brightness penetrating Dark Obscurity.
It begins by
grasping things and deducing their categories,
observing them, taking hold of them,
lifting them up, and arranging them,
and pervasively positing them as categories of similarity,
by which things can be understood as ideas and visualized as forms.
It then
penetrates various obstructions,
bursts open various blockages,
to guide your awareness,
to connect it to the Limitless.
[It] then thereby illuminates
the stimuli of the various categories of things,
the responses of identical qi,
the unions of yin and yang,
and the intricacies of forms and shapes.
It is what leads you to observe and discern in a far-reaching and expansive way. [21/224/22–25]
“Quintessential Spirit” provides the means by which to
trace to the source the root from which human life arises
and understand what animates humans’ form, frame, and nine orifices.
Taking its images from Heaven,
it coordinates and identifies humans’ blood and qi
with thunder and lightning, wind and rain;
correlates and categorizes humans’ happiness and anger
with dawn and dusk, cold and heat.
Judging the distinctions between life and death,
distinguishing the traces of identity and difference,
regulating the workings of movement and stillness,
it thereby returns to the Ancestor of nature and destiny.
It is what enables you to
cherish and nourish the essence and spirit,
pacify and still the ethereal and earthly souls,
not change the self on account of things,
and fortify and preserve the abode of Emptiness and Nothingness. [21/224/27–21/225/2]
“The Basic Warp” provides the means by which to
illuminate the Potency of the great sages
and penetrate the Way of the Unique Inception.10
Delineating and summarizing the devolution of decadent eras from past to present,
it thereby praises the flourishing prosperity of earlier ages11
and criticizes the corrupt governments of later ages.
It is what enables you to
dispense with the acuity and keenness of hearing and sight,
still the responses and movements of the essence and spirit,
restrain effusive and ephemeral viewpoints,
temper the harmony of nourishing your nature,
distinguish the conduct of [the Five] Thearchs and [Three] Kings,
and set out the differences between small and great. [21/225/4–6]
“The Ruler’s Techniques” [addresses] the affairs of the ruler of humankind. It provides the means by which to adapt tasks [to individuals] and scrutinize responsibilities so as to ensure that each of the numerous officials exerts his abilities exhaustively. [It] illuminates
how to wield authority and manage the handles of governance
and thereby regulate the multitudes below;
how to match official titles with actual performance
and investigate them [with the techniques of] threes and fives.12
It is what enables the ruler of men to
grasp techniques and sustain essentials
and not act recklessly based on happiness or anger.
Its techniques
straighten the bent and correct the crooked,
set aside self-interest and establish the public good,
enabling the one hundred officials to communicate in an orderly fashion
and gather around the ruler like the spokes of a wheel,
each exerting his utmost in his respective task,
while the people succeed in their accomplishments.
Such is the brilliance of the ruler’s techniques. [21/225/8–11]
“Profound Precepts”
parses and analyzes [various] assessments of the Way and its Potency,
ranks and puts in sequence [diverse] differentiations of Humaneness and Rightness,
summarizes and juxtaposes the affairs of the human realm,
generally bringing them into conformity with the Potency of spirit illumination.
It proposes similes and selects appositions
to match them with analogies and illustrations;
it divides into segments and forms sections
to respond to brief aphorisms.
It is what makes it possible to find fault with persuasions and attack arguments, responding to provocations without error. [21/225/13–14]
“Integrating Customs” provides the means by which to
unify the weaknesses and strengths of the various living things,
equate the customs and habits of the nine Yi [tribes],
comprehend past and present discourses,
and thread together the patterns of the myriad things.
[It]
manages and regulates the suitability of Ritual and Rightness
and demarcates and delineates the ends and beginnings of human affairs. [21/225/16–17]
“Responses of the Way”
picks out and draws together the relics of past affairs,
pursues and surveys the traces of bygone antiquity,
and investigates the reversals of bad and good fortune, benefit and harm.
It tests and verifies them according to the techniques of Lao and Zhuang,13
thus matching them to the trajectories of gain and loss. [21/225/19–20]
“Boundless Discourses” provides the means by which to
stitch up the spaces in ragged seams and hems
and plug up the gaps in crooked and chattering teeth.14
It welcomes the straightforward and straightens out the devious,
in order to extend the Original Unhewn15 and thereby anticipate
the alternations of success and failure
and the reversals of benefit and harm.16
It is what enables you to
not be foolishly immersed in the advantages of political power,
not be seductively confused by the exigencies of affairs,
and so tally with constancy and change17
to link up and discern timely and generational alterations,
and extend and adjust [your policies] in accordance with transformations. [21/225/22–24]
“Sayings Explained” provides the means by which to
compare through analogy the tenets of human affairs
and elucidate through illustration the substance of order and disorder.
It ranks the hidden meanings of subtle sayings,
explaining them with literary expressions that reflect ultimate principles.
Thus it patches up and mends deficiencies due to errors and oversights. [21/225/26–27]
“An Overview of the Military” provides the means by which to illuminate
the techniques of battle, victory, assault, and capture;
the force of formations and movements;
and the variations of deception and subterfuge
embodying the Way of Adaptation and Compliance
and upholding the Theory of Holding Back;
it is what [enables you] to
know that when you form for battle or deploy to fight contrary to the Way, it will not work;
know that when you assau
lt and capture or fortify and defend contrary to Moral Potency, it will not be formidable.
If you truly realize its implications,
whether advancing or retreating, moving right or left,
there will be no place to be attacked or endangered.
It takes relying on force as its substance
and clarity and stillness as its constant.
It avoids fullness and follows emptiness,
as if driving forward a flock of sheep.
Such are the means to discuss military affairs. [21/225/29–31]
“A Mountain of Persuasions” and “A Forest of Persuasions” demonstrate how to
skillfully and elegantly penetrate and bore open the blockages and obstructions of the many affairs
and thoroughly and comprehensively penetrate and pierce the barriers and hindrances of the myriad things,
proposing analogies and selecting similes,
distinguishing categories and differentiating forms,
it thereby
leads and orders your awareness,
loosens and unties what is knotted up,
and unravels and unwinds what is wound up,
so as to illuminate the boundaries of affairs. [21/226/1–3]
“Among Others” provides the means by which to
observe the alterations of bad and good fortune,
discern the reversals of benefit and harm,
diagnose18 the symptoms of success and failure,
and mark out and hold up to view the boundaries of ends and beginnings.19
[It]
differentiates and distinguishes the subtleties of the one hundred affairs
and discloses and reveals the mechanisms of preservation and loss,
enabling you to know
bad fortune as good fortune,
loss as gain,
success as failure,
and benefit as harm.
If you truly grasp [its] utmost implications, you will possess the means to move to and fro and up and down among the vulgar of the age, while remaining unharmed by slander, abuse, venom, or poison. [21/226/5–7]
“Cultivating Effort” provides the means by which those
whose entry into the Way is not profound
and whose appreciation of argumentation is not deep
can, by observing these literary expressions, turn themselves around
to take clarity and purity as constants
and mildness and serenity as roots.
[But those who]
idly and lazily set aside their studies,