Lesson 7 · Why did Zhuangzi say, “The Dao is in excrement and urine”?

From “Knowledge Wandered North,” a chapter in the Outer Chapters of the Zhuangzi

“Knowledge Wandered North”: the final chapter of the Outer Chapters of the Zhuangzi

• The Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi are believed to have been written by Zhuangzi himself, while the Outer Chapters are believed to have been written by his disciples
  • Many scholars have studied these two sections, which form a complete loop
    • What is a closed loop?
    • The first of the 7 Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi is called “Free and Easy Wandering” “Free and Easy Wandering” tells the story of the great Peng bird flying from the Northern Sea to the Southern Sea. In the dark northern sea there is a fish named Kun, so enormous that no one knows how many thousands of li it measures. From the Northern Sea, the bird rides the whirlwind of the sixth month to the Southern Sea
    • The final Outer Chapter is called “Knowledge Wandered North” The opening story of “Knowledge Wandered North” is about a person named Knowledge (a symbol of learning) who travels north
    • In other words, the great Peng bird travels from north to south, while Knowledge travels from south to northZhuangzi forms a complete circle between the beginning of the Inner Chapters and the end of the Outer Chapters. Through form, he conveys the core essence of the Dao: two movements of reversal/return make a circle. This is an important expressive and literary strategy in the Zhuangzi:
      Form is content
    • The Zhuangzi expresses Daoist thinking not only through the content of its writing,
      but even through its form

Main Text

• Dongguo Zi asked Zhuangzi, “Where is this thing called the Dao?” Zhuangzi replied, “There is nowhere it is not.” “Where is it?” (wu hu zai) uses an inverted word order common in Classical Chinese
  In regular word order, it would be zai wu hu
  • Where is this Dao you speak of? I cannot see itThis is how most people feel when listening to teachings on the Dao De Jing, so the teacher first introduces appearances and manifestations, and then the Dao
  • The Dao is everywhere
  • The Dao is in lowly things
  • To say that the Dao is everywhere means that the invisible, intangible Dao that exists in the universe is embodied in every aspect of life and all things
    • In contrast to the Dao abstracted beyond concrete forms, the specific manifestations—the things that embody the Dao—are found in everyday life, in lowly places.
    • “In lowly places” and “in every aspect of life” mean the same thing
• Dongguo Zi said, “You must be specific.” Zhuangzi replied, “It is in mole crickets and ants.” Dongguo Zi says, “I hope you can explain what you mean by ‘everywhere.’” Zhuangzi says that the Dao is in ants and little insects. Mole crickets and ants are tiny and dirty
• He asked, “Why is it so lowly?” Zhuangzi replied, “It is in weeds.”
  • He asks, “Why is the Dao so lowly?” He has a misconception about the Dao: he thinks it should be lofty and exalted
  • Ti bai: weeds in the fieldsEven lower than mole crickets and ants—the most useless things of all. Mole crickets and ants are at least living creatures, while weeds interfere with farmers’ harvests, making them even lower
• He asked, “Why go even lower?” The reply was, “It is in bricks and tiles.”
  • Question: Why go even lower? Zhuangzi said: It is in the bricks used to build walls.
  • Bricks and tiles (PI): bricks used to build walls：Darker, dirtier, and more in keeping with the characteristics of the Dao
• He asked, “Why go to an even greater extreme?” The reply was, “It is in excrement and urine.”
  • Question: Why go lower still? Zhuangzi said: It is in feces and urine.：Finally, it descends this far, to something even more disgusting than the dirt pills Ji Gong rubbed off his body
  • Zhuangzi uses this kind of exaggeration to tell people: ：The Dao is in the lowest places. If you truly want to pursue the Great Dao, look for answers in all the things of everyday life, rather than studying a book that sits above our everyday lives, full of abstract language you cannot understand.
    Or, while studying such a book, you must constantly relate it to everyday life.
• Dongguozi did not reply. ：Dongguozi did not respond after hearing this. Why not? Because he did not understand. So, in this story, Dongguozi is someone who does not understand the Dao; he thinks the Dao is somewhere high above.
• Zhuangzi said, “Your questions fail to reach the substance of the matter. When the market officials Zheng and Huo asked the market inspector about testing a pig by stepping on it, the answer was: ‘The lower you go, the clearer the indication.’”
  • How would an official in charge of a market check whether a pig slaughtered by a butcher was fat enough and met the standard?
    • He would step on the pig’s lower leg to see whether the meat there was fatty. If the lower leg was very fatty, that showed the pig was fat overall.
  • The point is that, to judge whether something is good, you should look not at its strengths but at its weaknesses.
    • What determines how high you can rise in life is not the longest stave in the barrel, but the very shortest one.
    • Why the shortest stave?
    • Because the Dao is in the low places.
    • How much you can achieve depends on your weakest point, not your strongest.
    • If you always focus on your strengths and feel smug and capable：You are like a gangster wearing a gold chain: the moment Li Fengtian shows up, he knocks you flat. That is because you focus too much on your extreme yang side,
      while ignoring your extreme yin side.
    • So, wisdom in life lies in identifying your own low points.
    • Confucianism also teaches: Be cautious and apprehensive, as though standing at the edge of a deep abyss or walking on thin ice.
    • Truly capable people with successful careers are cautious in everything they do.
    • They do not think that success entitles them to act however they like. They remain cautious.
    • Because they always know: The Great Dao is in the low places.
    • If you put yourself on too high a pedestal, you can easily fall.