The Huainanzi

by An Liu

If you are able to preserve it here, then your Potency will not diminish. The myriad things commingle in profusion, and you can revolve and transform together with them and thereby listen to the entire world. It is like galloping with the wind at your back. This is called “Perfect Potency.” If you attain Perfect Potency, then you will be truly content.

  Among the people of olden times were those who lived in caves and grottoes but whose spirits did not depart from them [i.e., did not lose the centeredness derived from the spirit]. Among people of recent times are those who have the power of ten thousand chariots but who every day are worried and saddened.

  If we look at things from this viewpoint,

  sageliness is lost in governing people, yet it is found in attaining the Way.

  Contentment is lost in wealth and station, but it is found in the harmony of Potency.

  When you understand how to emphasize the self and deemphasize the [external] world, then you will be close to the Way. [1/7/13–18]

  What is called “contentment”? Why must it consist of residing in the Lofty Terrace or the Elegant Floral Terrace; or roaming in the Lake of Cloudy Dreams or Sandy Hillock?52 The ear’s listening to the “nine shao [songs]” or the “six ying [pieces]”;53 or the mouth’s tasting finely prepared delicacies; or galloping on a level highway; or hunting the auspicious turquoise kingfisher—is this what is called contentment?54 What I call “contentment” refers to a person realizing his [deepest] realization [i.e., the Way]. Now those who realize their [deepest] realization:

  Do not find contentment in extravagance

  or grief in frugality.

  They close together with the yin

  and surge together with the yang.

  Thus when [Confucius’s disciple] Zixia had conflict in his mind he grew thin, but when he attained the Way, he fattened up again. Sages do not allow their own persons to be enslaved by external things and do not allow desires to disrupt their [inner] harmony.

  Therefore, when they are content, they do not delight in it;

  when they are aggrieved, they are not distressed by it.

  Through myriads of situations and hundreds of alterations, they flow freely and have nothing fixed:

  “I alone remain detached;

  I abandon external things,

  and proceed together with the Way.”55

  Therefore if you have the resources to realize it [the Way] yourself, then

  beneath [the canopy of] lofty forests

  and in [the bowels of] the deepest caves,

  you will have what it takes to respond appropriately to your situation. But if you do not have the wherewithal to realize it yourself, then although you take the entire world as your own family and the myriad people as your servants and concubines, you will not have what it takes to nurture life.

  If you are able to perfect the condition of being totally devoid of contentment, then there is nothing that will not make you content. If there is nothing that does not content you, then you will attain perfect contentment.56 [1/7/20–26]

  1.16

  Now setting up bells and drums, lining up wind and string instruments, spreading out felt mats and cushions, hanging up banners and ivory carvings, the ears listening to the licentious court music from the last Shang capital region,57 presenting beauties of an elegant complexion, setting up wine and passing around goblets all night into the next morning, powerful crossbows shooting at high-flying birds, running dogs chasing crafty hares: All these may bring you contentment, consume you with a blazing passion, and tempt you to lust after them. But when you unhitch the chariot, rest the horses, stop the wine, and halt the music,

  your heart suddenly feels as if it is in mourning,

  and you are as depressed as if you had a great loss.

  What is the reason for this? [It is]

  because you do not use what is intrinsic to bring contentment to what is extrinsic but, rather, use what is extrinsic to bring contentment to what is intrinsic. So when the music is playing, you are happy, but when the songs end, you are sad.

  Sadness and happiness revolve and generate one another;

  your Quintessential Spirit becomes chaotic and defensive

  and cannot get a moment’s rest.

  If you examine the reasons for this, you cannot grasp their shapes, yet every day because of this, you injure your vitality and neglect your [deepest] realizations.

  Therefore, if you do not realize the intrinsic [nature] that lies within you, then you will bestow your natural endowment [of Quintessential Spirit] on external things and use it to falsely adorn yourself.58

  It will not seep into your flesh and skin;

  it will not pass into your bones and marrow;

  it will not stay in your mind and awareness;

  it will not collect in your Five Orbs.

  Thus,

  unless you have an internal master, what enters you from the outside will not stop.

  Unless it is responding to something external, what exits from within will not be activated.

  Thus,

  when they hear good words and sound advice, even fools know to accept it.

  When they are told of Perfect Potency and lofty actions, even the unworthy know to yearn for it.

  Yet while those who accept it are many, those who make use of it are few.

  While those who yearn for it are many, those who practice it are few.

  Why is this so? Because they do not know how to return to their natures.

  When those whose intrinsic [nature] has not opened up within insist on studying [Potency and lofty actions], [the words] enter their ears but do not take hold within their minds. How is this different from the songs of deaf mutes? They simply imitate what others do, but they do not have the means to make music themselves. The sounds issue forth from their mouths, but they merely spill out and disperse. [1/7/28–1/8/9]

  1.17

  The mind is the master of the Five Orbs. It regulates and directs the Four Limbs and circulates the blood and vital energy, gallops through the realms of accepting and rejecting, and enters and exits through the gateways and doorways of the hundreds of endeavors. Therefore if you do not realize it [your intrinsic nature] in your own mind and still want to control the entire world, this is like having no ears yet wanting to tune bells and drums and like having no eyes and wanting to enjoy patterns and ornaments. You will, most certainly, not be up to the task.

  Thus the world is a spiritlike vessel: you cannot act deliberately on it; you cannot control it.59 Those who attempt to deliberately act on it will be defeated by it; those who try to control it will lose it. Now the reason that Xu You60 devalued the world and would not trade places with Yao was because he had the intention of leaving the world behind. Why was this so? Because he thought that you should act on the world by adapting to it [and not trying to force your own will on it].

  The essentials of the world:

  do not lie in the Other

  but instead lie in the self;

  do not lie in other people

  but instead lie in your own person.

  When you fully realize it [the Way] in your own person, then all the myriad things will be arrayed before you. When you thoroughly penetrate the teachings of the Techniques of the Mind, then you will be able to put lusts and desires, likes and dislikes, outside yourself.61

  Therefore [if you realize the Way],

  there is nothing to rejoice in and nothing to be angry about,

  nothing to be happy about and nothing to feel bitter about.

  You will be mysteriously unified with the myriad things,

  and there is nothing you reject and nothing you affirm.

  You transform and nourish a mysterious resplendence

  and, while alive, seem to be dead.62 [1/8/9–18]

  1.18

  The world is my possession, but I am also the possession of the world. So how could there even be the slightest gap between me and the world?

  Why must possessing the entire world
consist of grasping power, holding onto authority, wielding the handles of life and death, and using them to put one’s own titles and edicts into effect? What I call possessing the entire world is certainly not this. It is simply realizing it [the Way] yourself. Once I am able to realize it [the Way], the entire world will also be able to realize me. When the entire world and I realize each other, we will always possess each other. And so how could there be any gap between us to be filled in? What I call “to realize it yourself” means to fulfill your own person. To fulfill your own person is to become unified with the Way.

  Thus roaming along riverbank or seashore, galloping with Yao Niao63 or riding a chariot beneath a kingfisher-feathered canopy, the eyes seeing the “Plumes of the Pheasant” dance or the performance of the “Emblems of King Wu” music, the ears listening to lavishly clear, elegant, and rousing melodies or being stimulated by the licentious music of Zheng and Wey or getting wrapped up in the stirring traditional ballads of Chu or shooting at high-flying birds along the lakeshore or hunting wild beasts in hunting preserves: all these are things that average people find alluring and intoxicating.64 Sages experience them but not so much as to dominate their Quintessential Spirit or to disrupt their vital energy and concentration or cause their minds to be enticed away from their true nature.

  To reside in a remote village on the side of a deep gorge hidden amid dense vegetation in a poor hut with a thatched roof on which grass sprouts up, whose door is overgrown by vines and which has small round windows like the mouth of a jar and a mulberry staff for a hinge, a hut whose roof is leaky and whose floor is damp, whose sleeping quarters are drafty and blanketed by snow and frost so that the grass mats are soaked; to wander in a vast marsh and ramble on the side of mountain slopes: these are things that would make average people develop dark moods and make them anxious and sad and unable to concentrate on anything. Sages live in places like this, but they do not make them worried or angry or make them lose what makes them content on their own. What are the reasons for this? Because they intrinsically have the means to penetrate to the Mechanism of Heaven, and they do not allow honor or debasement, poverty, or wealth to make them weary and lose their awareness of their Potency. Thus, the cawing of the crow, the squawking of the magpie: has cold or heat, dryness or dampness ever altered their sounds?65 [1/8/18–1/9/4]

  Therefore when the realization of the Way is secure, it does not depend on the comings and goings of the myriad things. It is not because of a momentary alteration or transformation that I have secured the means to realize it myself. What I am calling “realization” means realizing the innate tendencies of nature and destiny and resting securely in the calmness that it produces.66 [1/9/6–7]

  1.19

  Now our nature and destiny emerge from the Ancestor together with our bodily shapes. Once these shapes are completed, our nature and destiny develop; once our nature and destiny develop, likes and dislikes arise.

  Thus, scholars have the established format of essays; women have unchanging standards of conduct. The compass67 cannot become square, and the carpenter’s square68 cannot become round, nor can the marking cord become crooked and the angle rule69 become straight. The constancies of Heaven and Earth are such that climbing up a hill does not make you taller and sitting on the ground does not make you shorter.

  Therefore, those who realize the Way:

  when impoverished are not cowed,

  when successful are not proud.

  When they dwell on high, they are not stirred by it;

  when they grasp a full vessel, they do not tip it over.

  They are new but not shiny;

  they are old but not faded.

  They enter fire but are not scorched;

  they enter water but are not drenched.

  Therefore,

  they do not depend on political position to be honored.

  They do not depend on wealth to be rich.

  They do not depend on physical force to be strong.

  Even and empty, they flow downward,

  and they soar upward along with transformations.

  People like these

  store their gold in the mountains,

  hide their pearls in the deep,

  do not profit by goods and wealth,

  do not lust after political position and fame.

  Therefore,

  they do not take prosperity as contentment,

  nor do they take privation as aggravation.

  They do not take honor as security,

  nor do they take debasement as danger.

  Their bodies, spirits, vital energy, and awareness each dwell in their appropriate activities, and they thereby follow the workings of Heaven and Earth. [1/9/7–13]

  The physical body is the abode of vitality;

  the vital energy is the source of vitality;

  and the spirit is what regulates vitality.

  If one of these loses its position, then the other two will be harmed.

  Therefore, sages ensure that each rests in its appropriate position, preserves its specific functions, and does not interfere with the others.

  Thus, if the physical body resides where it is not safe, it will be destroyed;

  if the use of vital energy does not match what replenishes it, it will drain away;

  if the spirit acts in an inappropriate manner, it will become darkened.70

  These three must be attentively guarded. [1/9/15–18]

  1.20

  Now consider the myriad things of this world, even spiders and wasps that creep and crawl. All know what they like and dislike, what brings them benefit and harm. Why? Because they are constantly guided by their natures. If it were to suddenly leave them, their bones and flesh would have no constant guide. People today can see clearly and hear acutely; their bodies can support weight, and their hundred joints can bend and stretch; they can differentiate between white and black, discern ugliness and beauty; and they can understand sameness and difference and clarify right and wrong. Why? Because vital energy infuses these activities, and the spirit regulates them. How do we know this is so?

  In general, when there is something that occupies peoples’ awareness and their spirit is tied up in it, when they walk they stumble over tree roots or bump their heads on tree limbs without their realizing it. If you beckon to them, they cannot see you; if you call to them, they cannot hear you. Their eyes and ears have not left them, but they cannot respond. Why? Their spirit has lost what it is guarding [its concentration].

  Thus,

  when it focuses on the small, it forgets the great;

  when it focuses on the inside, it forgets the outside;

  when it focuses on the high, it forgets the low;

  and when it focuses on the left, it forgets the right.

  When there is nowhere it does not infuse, there is nowhere it does not focus. Therefore those who value emptiness [their concentration is so refined that] they take the tip of an autumn hair as their abode. [1/9/20–26]

  1.21

  Now there is a reason why madmen cannot avoid disasters of water and fire and why they cannot cross over obstacles like ditches and culverts. How could it be that they have no body, spirit, vital energy, and awareness? Despite this, they use them in a different fashion. They have lost the relative positions they are supposed to guard, and they have left their external or internal dwellings.71

  Therefore,

  if madmen make mistakes, they cannot compensate for them;

  they cannot strike a balance between activity and rest.

  Throughout their lives, they drag their withered bodies along the edge of mountain ridges and embankments, stumbling into filthy ditches and sewage pits. Although they were born the same as other people, they cannot escape their condemnation and ridicule. Why? Because their bodies and spirits have lost their relative positions.

  Thus, when the spirit rules, the body follows and benefits from this.

  When the body governs, the spirit follows and is harmed b
y this.

  People who are covetous and filled with desires

  are blinded by political power and profit

  and are enticed by their lust for fame and station.

  If by surpassing the wisdom of others they hope to grow tall in the eyes of the world, then their Quintessential Spirit will daily be squandered and become increasingly distant from them.

  If they indulge in this for long and do not reverse this pattern when their bodies close down during daily activities, then their spirit will have no way to reenter. [1/9/28–1/10/5]

  Thus throughout the world, there are sometimes the misfortunes of people who lose themselves through blindness and stupidity. This is the same thing as the tallow of a candle: the more the fire burns it, the more it melts and eventually disappears.

  Now the more that the vital essence, spirit, vital energy, and awareness are tranquil, the more they will be abundant and strong. The more they are agitated, the more they will be depleted and aged.

  Therefore, sages nourish their spirits,

  harmonize and soften their vital breath,

  and pacify their bodies.

  They sink and float, plunge and soar, through life along with the Way.

  In calmness, they relax into it.

  When pressed, they employ it.

  Their relaxing into it is like their taking off clothes;

  their use of it is like shooting a crossbow.

  In this way, there are no transformations of the myriad things that they do not welcome,

  and no alterations of the hundreds of affairs to which they do not respond. [1/10/7–10]

  Translated by Harold D. Roth

  1. Liu he ; that is, the three dimensions: up-down, front-back, left-right. See 4.1.

  2. The four binding cords (si wei ) are the “corners” of the compass-circle: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest. See 3.10.

  3. These two August Lords are the mythical organizer deities Fuxi and Nüwa. Fuxi is often depicted holding a carpenter’s square and laying out the square earth; Nüwa is often depicted holding a compass and laying out the round heavens. See Major 1993, 267.

  4. The Unhewn (pu ) is a symbol for the desireless state found in both the Way and the sage-ruler who is united with the Way. Its locus classicus is Laozi 19 and 28.