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Abstract
This essay traces the development of the right-hand inscription (zuoyouming 座右銘) from its birth in the second century CE through its culmination as a complex literary subgenre in the tenth. Over the course of these eight centuries, right-hand inscriptions were used by some of the most prominent poets of their respective eras, including Cui Yuan 崔瑗 (77–142 CE), Bian Lan 卞蘭 (ca. 230), Zhi Dun 支遁 (314–366), Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846), and Guanxiu 貫休 (832–913). These writers used the subgenre to advocate for many different kinds of wisdom, often reflecting intellectual trends of their times. The inscriptions underwent a process of literarization, meaning they became more deeply embedded in a self-consciously literary tradition. By the end of this process, with the poet-monk Guanxiu, the temporal spectrum of address (past-present-future) comes to dominate the others. Poetic address, in this subgenre of verse as in shi-poetry 詩, comes to focus more on the literary tradition itself than the poem’s immediate readership.
Keywords:
Notes on Contributor
Thomas J. Mazanec is assistant professor of premodern Chinese literature and cultural studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His main research areas are medieval Chinese poetry, Buddhism, digital humanities, and translation. His first book, Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China, is being reviewed for publication. He is currently engaged in several translation projects, working on a second monograph on the limits of lyricism, and co-editing The Worst Chinese Poetry: A Critical Anthology.
Notes
1 John Stuart Mill, “Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties,” The Crayon 7.4 (1860): 95, drawing on William Wordsworth’s canonical statement that poetry “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility,” for which see “Preface,” in Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems, in Two Volumes, 2nd ed. (London: T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1800), 1:xxxiii. Northrop Frye restates an elaborated version of Mill’s dictum in his Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 249–50.
2 In addition to the examples given below, we can see the high regard for Cui Yuan’s “Inscription” in a story from the biography of Wang Jian 王儉 (ca. 452–489), in which the precocious child is given the text as part of his moral training (Li Yanshou 李延壽 [fl. 627–649], Nanshi 南史 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975], 22.590–91).
3 On Cui Yuan, see Rafe de Crespigny, A Biographical Dictionary of the Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23–220 AD) (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 104; and David Knechtges and Taiping Chang, ed., Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, 3 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2010–2014), 1:175–78. On Cui Yuan, his father Cui Yin 崔駰 (30?–92), and his son Cui Shi 崔寔 (ca. 120–170), see Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Aristocratic Families of Early Imperial China: A Case Study of the Po-ling Ts’ui Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 34–49.
4 Liuchen zhu Wenxuan 六臣註文選, 55.6b (Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 ed.). Cui Yuan’s vengeance is also attested in his biography in Fan Hua 范曄, Hou Han shu 後漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 52.1722, though it is not there related to Cui’s composition of his inscription. The earliest references to Cui Yuan’s inscription can be found in the Wenxuan and Jinlouzi 金樓子 in the sixth century, and it one of the earliest examples of pentametric verse attributed to a known author. We have no reason to doubt its authenticity any more than other works from this period, and it follows the broader trend of pentameter becoming more widespread in this period.
See Donald Holzman, “Les premiers Vers pentasyllabiques datés dans la poésie chinoise,” in Mélanges de sinologie offerts à Monsieur Paul Demiéville, II (Paris: Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1974), 77–115; Lu Qinli 逯欽立, “Hanshi bielu” 漢詩別錄, in Han Wei Liuchao wenxue lunji 漢魏六朝文學論集 (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1984), 54–69; Muzhai 木齋, Gushi shijiushou yu Jian’an shige yanjiu 古詩十九首與建安詩歌研究 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2009), 2, 17–39.
5 It is unlikely that the inscription was carved into the seat itself, since Cui’s seat would have been a mat or bench he kneeled on and therefore would not have had a right-hand armrest. Chairs did not become widely used in China until the Tang. See John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 222–49.
6 Zengding Wenxin diaolong jiaozhu 增訂文心雕龍校注, annot. Huang Shulin 黄叔琳 et al. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2012), “Chapter 11: Inscriptions and Admonitions” (Mingzhen di shiyi 銘箴第十一), 3.139–54.
7 There is some debate among scholars whether, in the original story, you 宥 refers to the location of the inscription (you 宥 as a loan you 右, “right”) or to its function (you 宥 as a loan for you 侑, “urge”). See Hanshi waizhuan jishi 韓詩外傳集釋, comp. Xu Weiyu 許維遹 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 3.114–15. It is clear from his preface that Cui Yuan understood it, at least on one level, to refer to the location. It is possible that he understood it to refer to the function, too, in which case placing the inscription to the right of his seat would be a kind of visual pun.
8 The Xunzi version is the first anecdote found in chapter 28, for which see Xunzi jijie 荀子集解, comp. Wang Xianqian 王先謙 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1988); English translations in John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, 3 vols. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 3:244; and Daniel Fried, “A Never-Stable Word: Zhuangzi’s Zhiyan 卮言 and the ‘Tipping-vessel’ Irrigation,” Early China 31 (2007): 157. The Hanshi waizhuan version is the thirtieth anecdote found in chapter 3, for which see Hanshi waizhuan jishi, 3.146–47; English translations in James Robert Hightower, Han Shih Wai Chuan: Han Ying’s Illustration of the Didactic Application of the Classic of Songs, An Annotated Translation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), 111–13; and Paul Van Els, “Tilting Vessels and Collapsing Walls: On the Rhetorical Function of Anecdotes in Early Chinese Texts,” Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident 34 (2012): 155. On the Huainanzi version, see He Ning 何寧, annot., Huainanzi jishi 淮南子集釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998), 12:904–7; English translations in John Major et al., The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 480–81; and Van Els, “Titling Vessels and Collapsing Walls,” 157–58. A description of how the tilting vessel exploited centers of gravity to perform its trick can be found in Joseph Needham and Wang Ling, Science and Civilization in China, Volume 4: Physics and Physical Technology, Part I: Physics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 34–35.
9 For a French translation and brief discussion of this work, see Holzman, “Les premiers Vers pentasyllabiques datés dans la poésie chinoise,” 93–95.
10 The Annals of the Warring States (Zhanguo ce 戰國策) records a minister of the Kingdom of Wei 魏, Tang Ju 唐雎, as saying, “When others do something good for me, I cannot forget; when I do something good others, I cannot but forget” 人之有德於我，不可忘也；吾之有德於人，不可不忘也. See Zhanguo ce 戰國策 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978), 25.912; cf. J. I. Crump, Jr., Chan-kuo ts’e (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 447.
11 Classic of Changes (Yijing 易經), “Appended Phrases” 繫辭: “The gentleman moves only after settling his body and speaks only after setting his mind at ease” 君子安其身而後動，易其心而後語 (Ruan Yuan 阮元, Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2009], 8.184).
12 A saying attributed to Confucius in multiple sources, including the “tipping vessel” story as found in Xunzi and Hanshi waizhuan, reads: “Perspicacious intelligence and sagacious wisdom should be preserved by means of naïveté” 聰明聖知，守之以愚. Xunzi jijie, 28.520; and Hanshi waizhuan jishi, 3.115, 3.117, 8.302; cf. Hightower, Han Shi Wai Chuan, 112–13, 114, and 286.
13 Analects XVII.7: “Is it not said that if something is pristine, it can enter the muck and not be stained?” 不曰白乎，涅而不淄. Cf. Simon Leys, The Analects of Confucius (New York: Norton, 1997), 87.
14 Laozi 老子, chapter 76: “Humans are soft and weak when they are born, and hard and firm when they die. The ten thousand creatures and all vegetation are soft and delicate when born, and dry and withered when they die. Consequently, the hard and firm are the disciples of death, and the soft and weak are the disciples of life” 人生也柔弱，其死也堅強；萬物草木生也柔脆，其死也枯槁；故堅強者死之徒，柔弱者生之徒也.
15 I follow the commentary of Li Shan 李善 (d. 689), who notes Zheng Xuan’s gloss of xingxing 行行 in Analects XI.13 as “rigid and firm” (gangqiang 剛強).
16 On this point, see Li Nailong 李乃龍, “Cui Yuan ‘Zuoyouming’ renshengguan de lilun dise: jianxi zuoyouming wenti yiyi” 崔瑗《座右銘》人生觀的理論底色——兼析座右銘文體意義, Henan daxue xuebao (shehuikexue ban) 46.2 (2006): 79.
17 Reading William Waters, Poetry’s Touch: On Lyric Address (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), has been invaluable in helping me tease out some of the complexities of address I had begun to notice in the right-hand inscriptions of medieval China, though my categories do not map directly onto his.
18 In addition to Mill, Wordsworth, and Frye mentioned above, this connection between privacy and lyricism is well-attested (and contested) throughout The Lyric Theory Reader: A Critical Anthology, ed. Virginia Jackson and Yopie Prins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), such as in Jonathan Culler’s “Lyric, History, and Genre” (63–77), Helen Vendler’s “Introduction to The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets” (128–40); M. H. Abrams’s “The Lyric as Poetic Norm” (140–43); Jacques Derrida’s “Che cos’è la poesia?” (287–91). Studies of Chinese lyricism tend to emphasize privacy in the way it interacts with sociality or politics, as in Hu Dalei 胡大雷, Zhonggu shiren shuqing fangshi de yanjin 中古詩人抒情方式的演進 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2003), 340–42; Kao Yu-kung 高友工, Zhongguo meidian yu wenxue yanjiu 中國美典與文學研究 (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 2004); and David Der-Wei Wang, The Lyrical in Epic Time: Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Artists Through the 1949 Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).
19 For overviews of occasional verse at different points in the West, see Bret Mulligan, “Epigrams, Occasional Poetry, and Poetic Games,” in A Companion to Late Antique Literature, ed. Scott McGill and Edward J. Watts (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), 241–58; David Money, “Epigram and Occasional Poetry,” in Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin, ed. Sarah Knight and Stefan Tilg (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 73–86; and Joseph Leighton, “Occasional Poetry in the Eighteenth Century in Germany,” The Modern Language Review 78.2 (1983): 340–58.
20 Theodor Adorno, “On Lyric Poetry and Society,” in Notes to Literature, Volume 1, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 37–54.
21 See Thomas Schmitz, “Speaker and Addressee in Early Greek Epigram and Lyric,” in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram, ed. Manuel Baumbach et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 31.
22 See Joseph W. Day, “Poems on Stone: The Inscribed Antecedents of Hellenistic Epigram,” in Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram, ed. Peter Bing and Jon Steffen Bruss (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 29–47; and Gjert Vestrheim, “Voice in Sepulchral Epigrams: Some Remarks on the Use of First and Second Person in Sepulchral Epigrams, and a Comparison with Lyric Poetry,” in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram, 61–78. Some inscribed poems in ancient Greece played with their setting in a self-referential way to build irony or emotional complexity. On these, see Mario Burzachechi, “Oggetti parlanti nelle epigrafi greche,” Epigraphica 24 (1962): 3–54; and Rudolf Wachter, “The Origin of Epigrams on ‘Speaking Objects,’” in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram, 250–60.
23 On the literarization of ancient Greek epigrams, see Regina Höschele, “Epigram and Minor Genres,” in A Companion to Greek Literature, ed. Martin Hose and Dave Schenker (West Sussex: Wiley, 2016), 190–204.
24 In this, their strategies are similar to biblical wisdom literature. Roland E. Murphy calls these “the admonition” and “the saying,” for which see his The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 7–10; and his Wisdom Literature: Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Esther (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1981), 4–6.
25 On this, see Jonathan Culler, “Apostrophe,” in The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction, augmented ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 135–54.
26 See Knechtges and Chang, Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature, 44–45; and de Crespigny, A Biographical Dictionary, 20.
27 Yan Kejun 嚴可均, Quan Sanguo wen 全三國文, 30.2446–47, in Quan shanggu sandai Qin Han sanguo liuchao wen 全上古三代秦漢三國六朝文 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1958) [further references to “Yan Kejun” refer to this edition]; Ouyang Xun 歐陽詢, Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 (Siku quanshu 四庫全書 ed.), 23.17b.
28 Laozi 52: “Block out your joy and close your gates, and you will never toil your whole life” 塞其兌，閉其門，終身不勤.
29 Possibly an allusion to the tipping vessel story mentioned above. If so, the vessel (an illustrative object) has been replaced with an inscription (admonitory writing).
30 Analects XV.8: “The Master said: ‘If a person may be spoken with, but you do not speak with them, that is wasting the person. If a person may not be spoken with, but you do speak with them, that is wasting speech. A wise person wastes neither people nor speech’” 子曰：「可與言而不與之言，失人；不可與言而與之言，失言。知者不失人，亦不失言。」Cf. Leys, Analects, 75.
31 Dust: the dust that is stirred up by your footsteps. Laozi 4: “Blunt your sharpness, unravel your tangles, soften your light, and conform your dust” 挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵.
32 Wenzi 文子: “Laozi says: ‘The Way takes non-existence to be its form. I observe it without seeing its shape and listen to it without hearing its sound. I refer to it as the hidden and dark. The hidden and dark is a means of discussing the Way, but it is not the Way’” 老子曰：「道以無有為體，視之不見其形，聽之不聞其聲，謂之幽冥者。幽冥者，所以論道，而非道也。」(Wenzi shuyi 文子疏義, ed. Wang Liqi 王利器 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2009], 6.260). A similar passage can be found in Huainanzi 淮南子 (Huainanzi jishi, 16.1101–2).
33 Zhuangzi: “[The sage] does not act to prioritize good fortune, nor to initiate disaster. He responds when affected, moves when pressed, and arises only when he has no other choice” 不為福先，不為禍始；感而後應，迫而後動，不得已而後起. Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋, coll. Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2012), 15.539; cf. Victor Mair, Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu (New York: Bantam, 1994), 145.
34 In Analects XVIII.7, Confucius’ disciple Zilu 子路 criticizes an old man who went into reclusion instead of serving the state: “Wishing to purify his person, he ruined the Great Relationship [of the government to the governed]” 欲潔其身，而亂大倫 (cf. Leys, Analects, 92).
35 Book of Odes (Shijing 詩經), #195, “Foreboding” (“Xiao min” 小旻): “Be careful, be cautious / As if you were looking over an abyss, / As if you were treading on thin ice” 戰戰兢兢、如臨深淵、如履薄冰 (translation adapted from Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs, ed. Joseph Allen [New York: Grove Press, 1996], 175).
36 On Zhi Dun, his teachings, and their relationship to xuanxue, see Eric Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China, third ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 116–30. For an example of Zhi Dun’s xuanxue-inflected poetry, see Nicholas Morrow Williams, “The Metaphysical Lyric of the Six Dynasties,” T’oung Pao 98 (2012): 90–91. For more on Zhi Dun’s poetry and xuanxue, see Wang Shu 王澍, Wei-Jin xuanxue yu xuanyanshi yanjiu 魏晉玄學與玄言詩研究 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2007), 224–35.
37 Centuries later, Jiaoran 皎然 (720?–798?) would write his own didactic Buddhist wisdom verses, which he called his “Right-hand Gāthā” (Zuoyou ji 座右偈, in QTW 917.9557; Zhou shangren ji 晝上人集 [Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 ed.], 9.14b).
38 Zhang Fuchun 張富春, Zhi Dun ji jiaozhu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2014), 2.299–315; Yan Kejun, Quan Jin wen 全晉文, 157.4741; Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳, fascicle 4, in T 2059: 50.348c; Fayuan zhulin 法苑珠林, fascicle 48, in T 2122: 53.653a. My thanks to Graham Chamness and Nicholas Morrow Williams for offering many valuable suggestions on the translation of this difficult poem.
39 Mi 彌 appears to be used in the sense of miyuan 彌遠 or jiuyuan 久遠 (remote) here. This, at least, is how the early Tang monk Daoshi 道世 understood it when he adapted Zhi Dun’s lines to conclude a verse summarizing section 16.9 of his encyclopedia Fayuan zhulin 法苑珠林, on the worldly benefits of hearing and spreading the dharma: “released by non-release, the ultimate way is not far off” 遣于無遣，至道非彌 (T 2122: 53.466b). On Fayuan zhulin, see Stephen F. Teiser, “T’ang Buddhist Encyclopedias: An Introduction to Fa-yüan chu-lin and Chu-ching yao-chi,” T’ang Studies 3 (1985): 109–28; and Alexander Hsu, “Practices of Scriptural Economy: Compiling and Copying a Seventh-Century Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2018).
40 A homeless youth (Zhuangzi jishi 2.103; Mair, Wandering on the Way, 22, modified):
予惡乎知說生之非惑邪，予惡乎知惡死之非弱喪而不知歸者邪。
How do I know that love of life is not a delusion? And how do I know that fear of death is not like being a homeless waif who does not know the way home?
人之生，氣之聚也。聚則爲生，散則爲死。若死生爲徒，吾又何患！故萬物一也，是其所美者爲神奇，其所惡者爲臭腐；臭腐復化爲神奇，神奇復化爲臭腐。
Human life is the coalescence of vital breath. When it coalesces there is life; when it dissipates there is death. Since life and death are disciples of each other, how should I be troubled by them? Thus, the ten thousand things are a unity. What makes the one beautiful is its divine wonder, and what makes the other loathsome is its stench and putrefaction. The stench and putrefaction evolve into divine wonder, and divine wonder evolves once again into stench and putrefaction.
41 Three realms: The three realms of saṃsāra, namely the realms of desire (yujie 欲界), of form (sejie 色界), and of the formless (wusejie 無色界).
42 Reading xun 殉 (to sacrifice oneself, to die for a cause) for xun 徇 (swift), as attested in the text as found in Gaoseng zhuan and Fayuan zhulin.
43 Simultaneous allusion to the Buddhist doctrine of “no-self” (Sanskrit anātman, Chinese wuwo 無我 or feiwo 非我) and Zhuangzi, Chapter 2, “Discourse on Seeing Things as Equal”: “Just now, I have lost myself: can you understand this?” 今者吾喪我，汝知之乎 (Zhuangzi jishi 2.45; Mair, Wandering on the Way, 10). In third- and fourth-century translations of Buddhist scriptures, feiwo is frequently used to indicate the idea of no-self, both as a noun phrase directly translating anātman (see, e.g., Arthavargīya sūtra 義足經, trans. Zhi Qian 支謙 [223–253 CE], T 198: 4.185c; and Pañcaviṃśati sāhasrikā prajñāpāramitā sūtra 放光般若波羅蜜經, trans. Mokṣala [292 CE], T no. 221, 8:13a), and as a verb phrase stating that a person cannot be identical to any phenomenon (see, e.g., Bhadrapāla bodhisattva sūtra 拔陂菩薩經 [c. 220], T 419: 13.920c: “all dharmas are not myself”—切法非我).
44 See Zhuangzi jishi 11.390; Mair, Wandering on the Way, 99: “The ten thousand things teem teem, yet each returns to its roots” 萬物云云，各復其根.
45 Accomplished person: in Zhuangzi, “Discourse on Seeing Things as Equal,” this refers to one capable of understanding the unities behind seemingly contradictory things: “To split some thing up is to create something else; to create something is to destroy something elsle. But for things in general, there is neither creation nor destruction, for they all revert to being a unity. Only the accomplished one understands them as being a unity” 其分也，成也；其成也，毁也。凡物无成與毁，復通爲一；唯達者知通爲一. Zhuangzi jishi 2.70; Mair, Wandering on the Way, 16 (modified).
46 Zhuangzi: “Safety and danger alternate with each other, misfortune and fortune give birth to each other, indolence and urgency rub against each other, so that gathering and dispersal were thereby completed” 安危相易，禍福相生，緩急相摩，聚散以成. Zhuangzi jishi 25.914; Mair, Wandering on the Way, 264–65 (modified).
47 Pool of meditation: Buddhist metaphor for the mind’s store of mental concentration. The later Sūtra of the Names of the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Bhadrakalpa 現在賢劫千佛名經 (translated during the Liang 梁 dynasty, 502–557) notes that, if one “proceeds to let the pool of meditation dry up, one will not be able to draw forth the lotus of wisdom” 遂使禪池枯竭。靡引智慧之蓮 (T 447: 14.383a).
48 Three occlusions: following Zhang Fuchun, I take these to mean types of unclarity that arise from the three poisons (Skt. tridoṣa; Ch. sandu 三毒) of desire (tan 貪), anger (chen 瞋), and folly (chi 癡). Zhi Dun may be using the term “occlusion” here to mark a continuity with the classicist tradition, as Confucius outlines six occlusions of a different variety in Analects XVII.8.
49 Six illnesses: following Zhang Fuchun, I take these to mean illnesses resulting from the six defilements: falsehood (kuang 誑), flattery (chan 謟), arrogance (jiao 憍), vexation (fan 惱), hatred (hen 恨), and malice (hai 害).
50 I understand kongtong 空同 to be an alternate writing of kongtong 倥侗 (“ignorant, stupid”), which is used here as a putative verb. Five skandhas: The five “aggregations” which arrange to constitute objects in the world of experience, also written as wuyun 五蘊: form (se 色), feeling (shou 受), perception (xiang 想), volition (xing 行), and consciousness (shi 識).
51 Zhuangzi jishi 2.66; cf. Mair, Wandering on the Way, 16:
以指喩指之非指，不若以非指喩指之非指也；以馬喩馬之非馬，不若以非馬喩馬之非馬也。天地一指也，萬物一馬也。
Using a finger to explain that a finger is not a finger is not as good as using a non-finger to explain that a finger is not a finger, and using a horse to explain that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using a non-horse to explain that a horse is not a horse. Heaven and earth are a finger, and the ten thousand things are a horse.
52 That is, Zhuangzi’s doctrine is a surpassing one compared to everyday, rational discourse, but it is not superior to (nor fully disconnected from) the Buddhist dharma.
53 Marvelous awakening: The final stage of enlightenment, the level attained by the Buddha himself. I take this to mean the process of achieving nirvāṇa, but it could also refer to the Marvelously Awakened One himself, the Buddha, in which case we would have an abrupt change of subject: “Once the Marvelously Awakened One has expounded this … ”
54 The father of awakening: the Buddha.
55 The child: in the Laozi 老子 and self-cultivation traditions inspired by it, “the child” is used as a metaphor for the state of perfect innocence to which one attempts to return.
56 Zhuangzi jishi 2.70.
57 As Wang Bi notes in his commentary to chapter 39 of Laozi, “One is the first of numbers and the ultimate of things … One is what enables things to attain completion” 數之始而物之極也 … 物各得此一以成. Lou Yulie 樓宇烈, ed., Wang Bi ji jiaozhu 王弼集校釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980); translation adapted from Jana S. Rošker, “The Metaphysical Style and Structural Coherence of Names in Xuanxue,” in Dao Companion to Xuanxue (Neo-Daoism), ed. David Chai (Cham: Springer, 2020), 47.
58 Zhuangzi jishi 2.69; translation adapted from Brook Ziporyn, Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2009), 147.
59 On Zhi Dun’s identification of matter and emptiness, and how these relate to the key xuanxue concepts of the self-so (ziran 自然), mystery (xuan 玄), and more, see Ellen Y. Zhang, “Zhi Dun on Freedom: Synthesizing Daoism and Buddhism,” in Dao Companion to Xuanxue, 506–10.
60 This is described in his hagiography found in the Biographies of Eminent Monks (Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳, in T 2059: 50.348c).
61 On these other right-hand inscriptions, see Zhang Yue, “Respectfully Matching Compositions Made at Imperial Decree Bestowed upon the Various Commanderies’ Inciting Notaries, I Write a ‘Right-hand [Inscription]’” 奉和聖制賜諸州刺史應制以題坐右 (QTS 86.924); Chen Zi’ang, “Right-Hand Inscription” 座右銘 (Quan Tang wen 全唐文, comp. Dong Hao 董誥 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983], 214.2167–68; Quan Tangshi bubian 全唐詩補編, comp. Chen Shangjun 陳尚君 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1992], 332); and Jiaoran, “Right-hand Gāthā” 座右偈 (QTW 917.9557).
62 Zhu Jincheng 朱金城, Bai Juyi ji jianjiao 白居易集箋校 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988), 39.2625–26; QTW 677.6919.
63 There are many classical precedents for this statement. See, for example, Analects IV.5: “Honor and wealth are what people want, but if this can’t be done in proper way, one should not hold on to them. Baseness and poverty are what people despise, but if this can’t be done in a proper way, one should not avoid them” 富與貴是人之所欲也，不以其道得之，不處也；貧與賤是人之所惡也，不以其道得之，不去也 (cf. Leys, Analects, 15); the Annals of Mr. Lü (Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋): “If one is honored and wealthy but does not know the Way, this is tantamount to creating calamity. It would be better to be poor and base, for it is difficult to acquire material things when one is poor and base” 貴富而不知道，適足以為患，不如貧賤。貧賤之致物也難 (Lü Buwei, Lüshi chunqiu xinjiaoshi, 1.22; trans. adapted from Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 66); and Zhuangzi: “A person who is able to respect life, though he be honored and wealthy, would not injure his person on account of what nourishes him, and though he be poor and lowly, would not burden his physical being on account of what profits him” 能尊生者，雖貴富不以養傷身，雖貧賤不以利累形 (Zhuangzi jishi 28.967; Mair, Wandering on the Way, 286).
64 See Qunshu zhiyao 群書治要 (comp. 631), summarizing a section of Yinwenzi 尹文子: “Worldly people delight when hearing praise and fret when hearing calumny. This is the normal situation of the mass of men” 世俗之人，聞譽則悅，聞毀則戚，此眾人之大情 (Yinwenzi 9; Qunshu zhiyao 群書治要 [Sibu congkan ed.], 37.19a).
65 Diamond Sūtra: “If one seeks me in outward form, or seeks me in sound, such a person practices the wrong way, and will not be able to see the Tathāgata” 若以色見我，以音聲求我， 是人行邪道，不能見如來 (Jin’gang bore boluomi jing 金剛般若波羅蜜經, trans. Kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什 in 403 CE, T 235: 8.752a).
66 “The taking and leaving of things” (shequ 取舍) was a common term for “good conduct.” I translate it literally to highlight the parallelism with the next line.
67 Laozi 64: “A nine-story terrace begins with layers of dust, and a journey of a thousand miles starts beneath your foot” 九層之臺，起於累土；千里之行，始於足下.
68 See my “Guanxiu’s ‘Mountain-Dwelling Poems’: A Translation,” Tang Studies 34.1 (2016): 99–109.
69 Hu Dajun 4.228.
70 For example, Guanxiu mentions him in a list of exemplary ministers in his “Song of Bright Spring” (Yangchun qu 陽春曲), which laments the destruction of the empire at the hands of Huang Chao’s band of rebels (Hu Dajun 1.9).
71 I have listed the rhymes in reconstructed Middle Chinese to highlight some of the formal aspects of Guanxiu’s poem, noted below. Middle Chinese reconstructions come from Paul Kroll et al., A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, rev. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2017).
72 Zhuangzi, Chapter 15: “[The sage] does not act to prioritize good fortune, nor to initiate disaster. He responds when affected, moves when pressed, and arises only when he has no other choice” 不為福先，不為禍始；感而後應，迫而後動，不得已而後起 (Zhuangzi jishi, 15.539; Mair, Wandering on the Way, 145). Note that this same Zhuangzi quotation was alluded to in Bian Lan’s poem.
73 Xunzi:
To honor the worthy and employ the able, to reward achievements and punish faults are not the views of a single individual. Such was the Way of the Ancient Kings, and such is the foundation of the unity of humanity. It is the natural response to taking good to be good and evil, evil.
夫尚賢使能，賞有功，罰有罪，非獨一人爲之也，彼先王之道也，一人之本也，善善惡惡之應也。
74 Zhuangzi: “And when the sages came, fawning about in practicing humaneness, and tiptoeing in practicing righteousness, the whole world first became suspicious” 及至聖人，蹩躠為仁，踶跂為義，而天下始疑矣 (Zhuangzi jishi 9.336; cf. Mair, Wandering on the Way, 81–82).
75 That is, one must recognize that the permanence of life is an illusion. See Zhuangzi: “What is not yet born cannot be forbidden, what is already dead cannot be prevented. Death and birth are not distant. Its their principle that cannot be seen. That someone caused them, or that no one enacted them, is a contingency of speculation” 未生不可忌，已死不可阻。死生非遠也，理不可睹。或之使，莫之為，疑之所假. Zhuangzi jishi 25.921; Mair, Wandering on the Way, 266 (modified).
76 The rainbow, the shadow, and the galloping horse are all metaphors for the brevity of life. The metaphor of the galloping horse, usually a white colt seen through a gap in a wall, was particularly well known. The Zhuangzi, for example, tell us:
Man's life between heaven and earth is like a white colt passing a crack in the wall—suddenly it's finished. Rapidly surging, all things come forth; smoothly subsiding, all things reenter. Having evolved they are born, then they evolve again and are dead. Living things are sorrowed by it; mankind is saddened by it.
人生天地之間，若白駒之過郤，忽然而已。注然勃然，莫不出焉；油然漻然，莫不入焉。已化而生，又化而死，生物哀之，人類悲之。
77 Jade Hall: here, the dwelling place of transcendents. See Zuo Si 左思 (ca. 250–ca. 305), “Fu on the Wu Capital” 吳都賦, lines 151–54: “Within their storied peaks and layered fastness / Is the realm of the transcendents. / Their jade halls face eave to eave; / Their stone chambers are closely joined” 增岡重阻，列真之宇，玉堂對霤，石室相距. See Wenxuan 5.208; translation adapted from David R. Knechtges, Wen xuan, or, Selections of Refined Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 1:383.
78 Smash-full jars: the early imperial Chinese equivalent of piggy banks, which are smashed to pieces when full so one can use the coins stored inside them. An early reference can be found in a letter supposedly written by Zou Changqing 鄒長倩 (second century BCE) to Gongsun Hong 公孫弘 preserved Xijing zaji 西京雜記, annot. Zhou Tianyou 周天游 (Xi’an: San Qin chubanshe, 2006), 5.215–16. Xijing zaji’s textual history is fraught, and it has been attributed variously to Liu Xin 劉歆 (d. 23 CE), Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–363), Wu Jun 吳均 (469–520), Xiao Ben 蕭賁 (d. 549), and anonymous compilers. On the various theories regarding Xijing zaji’s authorship, see Knechtges and Chang, Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature, 3:1648–56.
79 The sense here is that by “adorning” a wrong or “embroidering” a fault, one is trying to cover them up. The earliest reference to “embroidering faults and adorning wrongs” (wenguo shifei 文過飾非) is Zhong Hui’s 鍾會 (225–264) “Biography of My Mother, Ms. Zhang” (Mufuren Zhangshi zhuan 母夫人張氏傳): “Ms. Sun debated a broad range of things with wisdom and skill—her words were enough to adorn wrongs and embroider faults, but in the end they were incapable of harm” 孫氏辨博有智巧，言足以飾非文過，然竟不能傷也 (Yan Kejun, Quan Sanguo wen, 25.2380).
80 See the “Fu on a Widow” (Guafu fu 寡婦賦) by Pan Yue 潘岳 (247–300): “How unlucky was the fate I met— / The unrelenting disaster heaven brought down!” 何遭命之奇薄兮，遘天禍之未悔 (Wenxuan 16.736); cf. Knechtges, Wen xuan, 3:183–92; and Nicholas Morrow Williams, “Pan Yue’s ‘Study of a Widow’ and Its Predecessors,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 132.3 (2012): 347–65.
81 Analects XV.27: “The Master said, ‘Clever words ruin virtue, and not forbearing in little things ruins great plans.’” 子曰：巧言亂德，小不忍則亂大謀 (cf. Leys, Analects, 77).
82 See, e.g., the fourth major precept of the Brahma Net Sūtra (Fanwang jing 梵網經, T 1484: 24.1004c), which forbids “false speech” (wangyan 妄言).
83 Analects I.6: “Being close to the humane, [a disciple’s] concern for all should overflow” 汎愛眾而親仁 (cf. Leys, Analects, 4), and V.15: “Zigong asked, ‘For what reason was Master Kong Wen called Wen?’ The Master said, ‘Diligent, he loved to study and was not ashamed to ask questions of his inferiors. It’s for this reason that he was called Wen” 子貢問曰：孔文子何以謂之文也？子曰：敏而好學，不恥下問，是以謂之文也 (cf. Leys, Analects, 21).
84 Analects XV.21: “The Master said, ‘The gentleman seeks it within himself, the petty man seeks it from others” 子曰：君子求諸己，小人求諸人 (cf. Leys, Analects, 77).
85 See the opening lines of the “Ballad of a Fierce Tiger” (Menghu xing 猛虎行) by Lu Ji 陸機 (261–303): “Though thirsty, I won’t drink Thief Spring’s water / Though hot, I won’t rest in a dead tree’s shade” 渴不飲盜泉水，熱不息惡木陰 (Wenxuan 28.1293).
86 See the opening lines of “Chant for a White-Headed Man” (Baitou yin 白頭吟) by Bao Zhao 鮑照 (414?–466): “Straightforward as a line of vermillion silk, / Pure as ice in a jade pot” 直如朱絲繩，清如玉壺冰 (Wenxuan 28.1327). “Ice in a jade pot” became a widely used figure for purity in later times.
87 Hanshi waizhuan 7.20: “If you plant peach and plum trees in the spring, you will have shade to be under for the summer and fruit to eat in the fall. If you plant tackweed in the spring, you won’t be able to pluck its leaves in the summer and you will cut yourself on it in the fall. From this we can see, it’s all in what you plant” 夫春樹桃李，夏得陰其下，秋得食其實；春樹蒺藜，夏不可採其葉，秋得其刺焉；由此觀之，在所樹也 (Hanshi waizhuan jishi 7.263–64; cf. Hightower, Han Shih Wai Chuan, 244).
88 Liezi 列子: “Balance is the utmost principle of the world, and it applies to the things within it also” 均，天下之至理也，連於形物亦然 (Liezi jishi 列子集釋, comp. Yang Bojun 楊伯峻 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979], 5.171; cf. A. C. Graham, The Book of Lieh-tzu: A Classic of Tao [New York: Columbia University Press, 1990], 105).
89 Liezi: “Whatever has a skeleton of six feet, a distinction between hands and feet, hair worn on its head and a mouth filled with teeth, and tilts forward as it runs is called ‘a person,’ and yet a person may have the mind of a beast. Even if they do have the mind of a beast, we consider them kin on the basis of their appearance” 有七尺之骸，手足之異，戴髮含齒，倚而趣者，謂之人，而人未必無獸心，雖有獸心，以狀而見親矣 (Liezi jishi 2.83; cf. Graham, The Book of Lieh-tzu, 53).
90 Paul W. Kroll, “The Significance of the Fu in the History of T’ang Poetry,” T’ang Studies 18–19 (2000–01): 87–105.
91 Xiaojing Miao’s recent dissertation has done much to advance the field in this regard. See Miao, “Beyond the Lyric: Expanding the Landscape of Early and High Tang Literature” (Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 2019).