When the Great Dao Is Abandoned
Good evening, everyone.
We now turn to page 18. Chapter 18 begins: “When the Great Dao is abandoned, there appear benevolence and righteousness. When cleverness appears, there appears great hypocrisy. When the six relations are not in harmony, there appear filiality and parental kindness. When the state is dark and disordered, there appear loyal ministers.”
Patriarch Lü Chunyang explains that the “wisdom” mentioned here is not true Daoist fullness of understanding, nor Buddhist prajñā-wisdom. It means worldly cleverness, scheming, and self-important smartness. Once that kind of cleverness comes out, falseness comes out with it. Hence: “When cleverness appears, there appears great hypocrisy.”
The lecture then explains the contrast. True “rounded wisdom and square conduct” means being able to respond endlessly to changing situations while still remaining upright. “Round” means adaptive and inexhaustible, like a spring that never runs dry; “square” means standing straight, not bending oneself for poverty or becoming reckless through wealth and rank.
But Laozi is not criticizing that kind of rightful understanding. What this chapter attacks is opportunistic cleverness — the sort of mind that loves tricks, calculation, and deception. When that sort of intelligence dominates, society becomes disordered and hypocrisy multiplies.
The lecture then turns to the line, “When the six relations are not in harmony, there appear filiality and parental kindness.”
This stretch is OCR-damaged, but the meaning is recoverable. The teacher says that “six relations” has been explained in many different ways through the ages; definitions vary. Rather than press one technical scheme too hard, Patriarch Lü takes the phrase here broadly to mean the whole network of family relations.
The point is this: when a household is already harmonious, no one needs to single out “filial piety” or “parental kindness” as special virtues. Those names become prominent only after family harmony has broken down. Only when children are unfilial does “filial piety” have to be praised; only when affection fails does “kindness” have to be named.
The lecture uses Shun as the main example. Shun is praised as greatly filial not because ordinary family life was smooth, but precisely because his father and stepmother were cruel toward him and he still remained dutiful. If there had been no harshness above, Shun’s fame for filiality would not have stood out in the same way. In the same way, when a family lives in peace and mutual care, the labels “filial” and “kind” do not need to be emphasized.
The session pauses there and says the next line will be explained in the following lecture.
In the next session the lecture resumes chapter 18 and takes up the last line: “When the state is dark and disordered, there appear loyal ministers.”
Patriarch Lü explains it this way: when those above and below no longer understand what is right, and state policy has failed, then “loyal ministers” come into view. If a country is well governed and peaceful, where would the special name “loyal minister” come from? It is only when the state has fallen into confusion that such a title stands out. Thus, Zhou Gong was not disloyal — but because he served in a well-ordered age, his loyalty did not have to appear in the same dramatic way. Bi Gan, by contrast, became famous for loyalty because he served under the lawless King Zhou of Shang.
The lecture then turns to the *Shiji* account of Bi Gan. The OCR is rough in places, but the sense is clear: Bi Gan remonstrated with the ruler even at the cost of his life. The teacher pauses to explain that the word here should be understood as “to remonstrate” or “to admonish,” not to “fight.” If a minister sees his ruler in error and does not speak, that is not loyalty; if he fears death and keeps silent, that is not courage. Bi Gan therefore kept advising King Zhou until the king, enraged, had him killed and his body cut open.
The lesson is then broadened with the saying: “In a state without the Way one recognizes loyal ministers; in a family without harmony one recognizes filial sons; in poverty one recognizes a worthy wife; in trouble one recognizes good friends.” Crisis reveals qualities that remain hidden in easier times.
At that point the lecture says chapter 18 is complete.
After closing chapter 18, the source immediately moves into chapter 19 and begins explaining the line “Cut off sageliness, discard cleverness, and the people will benefit a hundredfold.”
Patriarch Lü says the “sage” here does *not* mean a morally perfected sage in the highest sense. It means an extremely clever technician or “clever sage” — someone outstanding in skill, ingenuity, or tactical intelligence. Likewise, the “wisdom” here is not true wisdom of the Dao, but worldly cleverness.
The lecture spends time clarifying the range of the word *sheng* (“sage”). In ordinary usage it can simply mean someone unmatched in a particular field: a “sage” of calligraphy, of poetry, of wine, and so on. In that broad sense, one may be called a “sage” because one’s skill surpasses others.
So in Patriarch Lü’s reading, Laozi’s phrase means: do away with the cult of manipulative brilliance and crafty intelligence. If that kind of cleverness is not allowed to flourish, people can live in peace, settle into their work, and receive great benefit.
The lecture then introduces Lu Ban as the classic example of a “clever sage”: a figure of extraordinary skill, especially in craftsmanship and practical invention, revered by later builders and artisans.
The lecture then broadens into a discussion of Mozi. Mozi too is called a sage in Chinese tradition, though many people know him less well. The teacher says that in older classification, the “three teachings” were once spoken of not as Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, but as Confucianism, Daoism, and Mohism.
What made Mohism distinctive, he says, was its doctrine of universal care: “all under heaven’s parents are my parents.” On that basis Mozi opposed aggression and war. When a large state prepared to attack a smaller one, he would go and argue against it.
This leads directly back to Lu Ban. The teacher says Lu Ban was not just a carpenter but also, in effect, a military engineer. That is why the coming story from the *Mozi* matters: it shows both Lu Ban’s extraordinary skill and Mozi’s moral opposition to war.
The session ends there for the night.
In the next lecture the teacher returns to the phrase “Cut off sageliness, discard cleverness; the people benefit a hundredfold,” and again insists that the “sage” here means a person of surpassing technical ability, not a saintly moral master.
To explain this, he cites the *Mozi*, chapter “Gongshu.” The story is that Gongshu Ban — Lu Ban — built scaling ladders for the state of Chu so that Chu could attack Song. Mozi heard of it and hurried for many days and nights to stop the campaign.
The teacher then retells the argument. Mozi asks: what crime has Song committed? If Song has no crime, why attack it? He compares Chu’s desire to seize Song to a man who already owns a fine carriage but still wants to steal a broken cart next door. Chu is vast; Song is small. To attack the smaller state would violate righteousness.
When words do not settle the matter, Mozi stages a demonstration with Lu Ban. Using his belt and improvised props as a model city and siege devices, he meets Lu Ban’s attacks again and again. Lu Ban cannot break through. Mozi then says that even if Chu killed him, it would still fail, because his own disciples are already waiting on Song’s walls to defend the city. At that point the king gives up the attack.
The lecture’s point is twofold: Lu Ban truly was a figure of extraordinary ingenuity, which is why later craftsmen honored him. But that kind of brilliance is not the same as moral sagehood.
From the Lu Ban example the lecture moves to a larger point: the word “sage” can be used in both good and bad senses. In ordinary language it may simply mean someone outstanding, whether morally noble or not.
So the teacher cites a line associated with the *Zhuangzi*: when such “sages” arise, great thieves arise too. The point is not about Confucius or the Buddha as moral exemplars. It is about highly capable figures in the realm of technique, cunning, or manipulation.
Thus the lecture warns the audience not to misread Laozi. “Cut off sageliness” here does not mean abolishing true holiness or genuine moral cultivation. It means cutting off the kind of superior cleverness that can serve destructive ends.
The lecture now develops the example of Robber Zhi in greater detail.
It begins by restating the warning: most people hear “sage” and immediately think of morally supreme figures such as Confucius, Laozi, or Śākyamuni. But in this discussion that is not the meaning. A “sage” may simply be someone unmatched in some practice — just as one may speak of a sage of poetry or wine.
The teacher then retells the famous *Zhuangzi* theme that even thieves have their own “way.” Robber Zhi’s followers ask whether robbery also has principles. The answer, in this ironic framework, is yes: the leader who can correctly guess what wealth is inside a house is called “sagely”; the one bold enough to enter first is “brave”; the one who withdraws last to cover the others is “righteous”; the one who judges whether the raid can succeed is “wise”; and the one who divides the plunder equally is “benevolent.”
This is of course not praise in any true moral sense. It shows only that the names of virtues can be borrowed by wicked people. A robber chief may gain the *name* of a “sage,” but he does not possess the virtue of a sage.
The lecture then cites *Xunzi* to say that even if such a man behaves like a chivalrous outlaw and wins public admiration, a gentleman still does not esteem him, because he is outside real ritual and righteousness. However flattering the reputation, it does not make the conduct upright.
The lecture then summarizes the story of Confucius and Robber Zhi.
Because the full debate would be too long and, in the teacher’s view, too dangerous to reproduce in detail, he gives only the beginning and the end. Confucius asks Liu Xia Hui why he does not reform his younger brother, the robber. Liu Xia Hui warns him not to go. Robber Zhi, he says, has a mind like a whirlwind: forceful, slippery, hard to answer, and able to turn wrong into right by sheer argument. If crossed, he will insult and overwhelm the other person.
Confucius goes anyway, and the result is exactly as warned. Robber Zhi defeats him in argument, turns every point back on him, and finally becomes so angry that Confucius has to flee.
When Confucius later meets Liu Xia Hui again, he compares the experience to teasing a tiger or plucking a tiger’s whiskers — a metaphor for courting needless danger. The lecture explains this image as taking a reckless risk and nearly ending up in the tiger’s jaws.
The point of the story is not to honor Robber Zhi morally. It is to show that highly capable, rhetorically brilliant, destructive figures can also be called “sages” in the loose sense. Therefore “cut off sageliness and discard cleverness” means eliminating manipulative intelligence and counterfeit greatness, not abolishing true virtue.
The final stretch of the source moves farther into chapter 19 and takes up the line “Cut off benevolence and discard righteousness, and the people return to filiality and kindness.”
Patriarch Lü’s explanation is that once the Great Dao has already been lost, the labels “benevolence” and “righteousness” arise as compensating moral slogans. If the Great Dao were still present, there would be no need to keep talking about benevolence and righteousness at all. So to “cut off benevolence and righteousness” means removing these artificial moral displays and letting people return to their native human feeling.
The lecture goes so far as to say that even tigers and wolves possess natural affection of a kind. Since human beings are the most spiritually endowed of creatures, how could they fall below beasts in filiality and kindness? Thus, if people truly return to their nature, there is no need to parade righteousness or advertise kindness.
The teacher then paraphrases a *Zhuangzi* discussion: loving and feeding one’s parents is not the highest difficulty; the harder thing is to care for them so naturally and deeply that one is not self-consciously “performing filial piety” at all. To let one’s parents rest at ease, free from worry — that is a higher expression of filial conduct.
The source breaks off there as it prepares to continue into the next phrase, “Cut off cleverness and profit, and thieves and bandits will be no more.”
This literal version consolidates the lecture’s English material into continuous notes, keeping close to the spoken sequence while preserving explanatory detail.