Responding to Emperors and Kings

Nie Que asked Wang Ni four questions, and four times Wang Ni answered, 'I don't know.' Nie Que leaped up in great delight.

Jian Wu met the madman Jie Yu, who said: 'Trying to govern the world like this is like trying to dig a river across the ocean or telling a mosquito to carry a mountain on its back.'

The Nameless Man said: 'Let your heart wander in the bland, merge your qi with the vast, follow the natural and allow no room for the personal — then the world will be well governed.'

Lao Dan said: 'The government of the enlightened king: his achievements cover the world yet seem not to come from himself. He transforms the ten thousand things, yet the people do not rely on him. He stands on what cannot be measured and wanders where there is nothing at all.'

In Zheng there was a divine shaman named Ji Xian. Liezi was enchanted, but his teacher Huzi revealed different aspects of his being over four encounters. The shaman fled in terror. Liezi realized he had not yet begun to learn and returned home for three years, cooking for his wife and feeding pigs as though feeding people.

The heart of the perfected person is like a mirror. It does not go after things, nor does it welcome them. It responds but does not store. Therefore it can handle all things without harm.

The emperor of the Southern Ocean was Shu; the emperor of the Northern Ocean was Hu; the emperor of the Center was Hundun. Shu and Hu tried to repay Hundun's kindness by boring him the seven holes that all men have. Each day they bored one hole, and on the seventh day, Hundun died.