Zhuangzi - Chapter 2 Section 2

 

In Section 1, in answering a question from his student,  Ziqi of South Wall explained the piping of earth and cryptically the piping of heaven.   In this section, the author gives an insightful description of humans' understanding, expressions, affects and behaviours.  We may roughly call these the piping of humans.

The following is the text of Chapter 2 Section 2 from the book "Zhuangzi, Basic Writings" translated by Burton Watson (1925-2017).

Chapter 2, Section 2

Great understanding (note 1) is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy.  Great words are clear and limpid (note 2), little words are shrill and quarrelsome.

In sleep, [humans'] spirits go visiting; in waking hours, their bodies hustle. With everything they meet they become entangled.  Day after day they use their minds in strife; 

Sometimes grandiose, sometimes sly (note 3), sometimes petty (note 4).

[Their] little fears are mean and trembly; [their] great fears are stunned and overwhelming. (note 5)

They bound off like an arrow or a crossbow pellet (note 6), certain that they are the arbiters of right and wrong. They cling to their position as though they had sworn before the gods, sure that they are holding on to victory.  

They fade like fall and winter - such is the way they dwindle day by day (note 7).  They drown in what they do - you cannot make them turn back.  They grow dark, as though sealed with seals - such are the excesses of their old age (note 8).  And their minds draw near to death, nothing can restore them to the light.  

Joy, anger, grief, delight, 

worry, regret, fickleness, inflexibility, 

modesty, willfulness, candor, insolence (note 9) - 

music from empty holes, mushrooms springing up in dampness, day and night replacing each other before us (note 10), and no one knows where they sprout from. 

Let it be! Let it be! [It is enough that] morning and evening we have them and they are the means by which we live (note 11).

Notes:

1. Knowledge or wisdom.
2. When translating the phrase 大言炎炎 , Watson felt the character 炎 should be read as dan (as in 淡）which means (of food) bland or tasteless. Limpid means clear and accessible.  Some scholars consider the character 炎 should be read as yan which means burning or hot.  The phrase 大言炎炎 then may be translated as "Great words are grand and intimidating."
3. In Chinese, it is 窖者 which literally means "cellar people" or "pit people". Sly means cunning, deceitful.
4. In Chinese, it is 密者 which literally means "secretive people".
5. Great fears are grandiose.
6. Where their utterances are like arrows from a bow.
7. Their lives fade like autumn and winter.
8. Their closed minds are as if tightly bound with cords.
9. Brashness, indulgence, lust, seduction.
10. (all these affects), like music from an empty tube, or mushrooms from the warm moisture, day and night succeed to one another and come before us.
11. Let us stop! Let us stop! Can we expect to find out suddenly how they are produced?

See Also

"Zhuangzi, Basic Writings" translated by Burton Watson 

Please find the Chinese text and English translation by James Legge below:

https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/adjustment-of-controversies