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In this section, Zhuangzi asks the question if completion and injury (or success and failure) really exist and proposes that the sage does not use things but relegates all to the constant (the basic quality of things).
The following is the text of Chapter 2 Section 7 from the book "Zhuangzi, Basic Writings" translated by Burton Watson (1925-2017), with some minor changes.
Chapter 2, Section 7
The understanding of the men of ancient times went a long way. How far did it go? To the point where some of them believed that things have never existed—so far, to the end, where nothing can be added. Those at the next stage thought that things exist but recognized no boundaries among them. Those at the next stage thought there were boundaries but recognized no right and wrong. Because right and wrong appeared, the Way was injured, and because the Way was injured, love became complete. But do such things as completion and injury really exist, or do they not?
There is such a thing as completion and injury—Mr. Zhao playing the lute is an example. There is such a thing as no completion and no injury—Mr. Zhao not playing the lute is an example.(note 1) Zhao Wen played the lute; Music Master Kuang waved his baton; Huizi leaned on his desk. The knowledge of these three was close to perfection. All were masters, and therefore their names have been handed down to later ages. Only in their likes were they different from him [the true sage]. What they liked, they tried to make clear. What he is not clear about, they tried to make clear, and so they ended in the foolishness of “hard” and “white.”(note 2) Their sons, too, devoted all their lives to their fathers’(note 3) theories but, till their death, never reached any completion. Can these men be said to have attained completion? If so, then so have all the rest of us. Or can they not be said to have attained completion? If so, then neither we nor anything else has ever attained it.
The torch of chaos and doubt—this is what the sage steers by.(note 4) So he does not use things but relegates all to the constant. This is what it means to use clarity.
Notes:
- Zhao Wen was a famous lute (qin) player. But the best music he could play (i.e., complete) was only a pale and partial reflection of the ideal music, which was thereby injured and impaired, just as the unity of the Way was injured by the appearance of love—that is, man’s likes and dislikes. Hence, when Mr. Zhao refrained from playing the lute, there was neither completion nor injury.
- The logicians Huizi and Gongsun Long spent much time discussing the relationship between attributes such as “hard” and “white” and the thing to which they pertain.
- Following Yu-lan Fung and Fukunaga, I read fu instead of wen.
- He accepts things as they are, though to the ordinary person attempting to establish values, they appear chaotic and doubtful and in need of clarification.
See Also
Please find the Chinese text and English translation by James Legge below:
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