The Nameless Block and Contentment
The speaker opens by apologizing for being absent for two months. He says he wanted to come, but at his age his body no longer fully obeys him. He fell because he insisted on walking by himself instead of letting others help him, and his knee still has not healed well.
Some fellow students had advised him to let younger people take the front and simply guide from behind the scenes. But once he stopped appearing, people kept calling and writing, even from far away, urging him to come back. So he returned. He says half-jokingly that he would rather die on the lecture platform than waste his time sitting idly at home.
This short passage is badly damaged by OCR, but it clearly marks the transition into Chapter 32. The lecturer begins reciting and introducing the chapter about the nameless Dao, the ruler who preserves simplicity, the natural submission of the myriad things, and the harmony symbolized by heaven and earth joining and sweet dew descending.
The lecturer first quotes Heshang Gong’s commentary. “The beginning that gives rise to names” refers to the Dao; “the named” refers to the myriad things. The nameless can generate the named, and the formless can generate form.
Once things are named and differentiated, desire appears. Named things become entangled in passions and cravings. When beings depart from the Dao and virtue, they invite damage, humiliation, and danger.
That is why the text says one should know where to stop. If a person models himself on the Dao and practices virtue, heaven itself will know it and lend protection. The lecturer then turns to Lü Chunyang, who likewise says that the “uncarved block” is the nameless root, and that once names harden into social status, people begin contending for reputation and position. Therefore one must know sufficiency, keep one’s proper share, and stop before danger arrives.
The first note explains *shoufen*—keeping one’s proper portion or station. The lecturer interprets it very practically: some people are suited to office, some are not; some are fated for wealth, some are not. If one forcibly pushes beyond one’s true measure, trouble follows.
He then tells a long series of stories about lottery winners, sudden money, and people ruined by greed. His point is not fatalistic passivity so much as a warning against obsession with gain. Wealth that is truly one’s due will come in its proper course; wealth seized by craving often brings misery.
He closes the digression by saying that if one has enough food, a place to live, and a peaceful livelihood, that is already enough. To rest contentedly in one’s proper lot—this is what he means by “keeping one’s share.”
The second note explains *danger* (*dai* 殆 / 危) as the condition of standing too high and trembling over the drop below. In other words, danger comes from elevation without stability.
Lü Chunyang again links this to the uncarved block. When the nameless simplicity of Dao gets broken into “implements,” distinctions and titles appear. Then people begin competing for name, rank, and recognition.
The lecturer applies this directly to politics. Once people start scrambling for public status, danger draws near. He points to elections and public office as obvious examples: as soon as fame and position become objects of struggle, misfortune follows close behind.
The lecturer adds an important clarification. “Do not contend for name and profit” does not mean one must reject all office, work, income, or social responsibility. Properly earned position and properly earned livelihood are fine.
What must be rejected is *striving*—grabbing, scheming, competing, and violating conscience for fame or gain. If one serves publicly, one should do so uprightly; if one earns money, one should do so honestly. The problem is not name or benefit themselves, but contention driven by greed.
Lü Chunyang explains the line “The Dao in the world is like rivers and valleys returning to the sea.” The myriad things are like streams and valleys; the Dao is like the sea. The sea becomes the gathering place of all waters because it stays low.
Thus the Dao rules through humility. Though the world is vast, all things naturally incline toward what is low, receptive, and non-contentious. If waters did not return to the sea, they would overflow chaotically and become flood. In the same way, if human life does not return to the Dao, disorder becomes impossible to manage.
The lecturer then uses Confucius and Laozi as examples of this same humility. True sages do not boast. Confucius does not dare call himself a sage; Laozi presents himself as merely passing on ancient teaching rather than claiming greatness for himself.
The lecture now shifts into Chapter 33, beginning with “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing oneself is illumination.”
The lecturer explains that to understand other people—their strengths, faults, likes, dislikes, and outward behavior—is *zhi*, intelligence or knowledge. This is still outward-facing awareness.
But to turn the light inward, examine one’s own heart, recognize one’s own faults, strip away passions and desires, and follow only the Dao—this is *ming*, inner clarity. In Buddhist terms, he says, this corresponds to wisdom (*hui*).
He then distinguishes between worldly appearances and true principle. Intelligence discerns the realm of conditioned phenomena; wisdom sees the unconditioned principle. Thus “knowing others” is knowledge, but “knowing oneself” is a deeper illumination.
He says plainly that removing the seven emotions and six desires is not easy. The seven emotions are familiar enough—joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, and desire—but the “six desires” are often misunderstood.
He criticizes the common explanation that simply equates them with the six sense faculties. Instead, he gives a more concrete moral reading: desire for sensual beauty, desire for attractive appearance, desire for graceful bearing, desire for fine bodily texture, desire for pleasing voice, and related forms of self-regarding attraction and comparison.
His practical point is that people constantly compare themselves with others—beauty, body shape, voice, bearing, and social presentation—and become trapped in dissatisfaction. If these emotional cravings are not reduced, the first gate of cultivation cannot be passed.
The next line is: “He who overcomes others has force; he who overcomes himself is strong.”
Heshang Gong says that defeating others merely shows power or might. Real strength lies in conquering one’s own passions and desires. If a person can master himself, then no one in the world truly has anything with which to contend against him.
Lü Chunyang makes the same distinction. Winning by exerting force is one thing; overcoming private desires and returning to propriety is another. The lecturer cites Zhu Xi’s explanation of “subduing the self and returning to ritual”: one must defeat selfish desires so that heavenly principle can flow unobstructed.
So managing others is only force. Managing oneself is genuine strength—and far more difficult.
The lecture continues with the next two lines: “He who knows contentment is rich. He who forcefully persists has will.”
To explain “knowing contentment is riches,” the speaker cites Yan Hui, who lived in poverty without losing his joy, and also cites Buddhist teaching that the contented person is peaceful even with little, while the discontented person remains poor even amid abundance.
He then cites Confucius: eating coarse food and drinking plain water can still contain joy, while wealth and rank gained wrongly are like floating clouds. From this, the lecturer concludes that true richness is not a matter of possessions but of contentment.
For “強行者有志,” he reads *qiang xing* not as aggressive pushing, but as diligent, steadfast practice. One who is earnest in walking the Way, cultivating truth without laziness, is a person of resolve. Thus persistent practice shows genuine aspiration.
The next line is “He who does not lose his place endures.”
The lecturer explains this through the image of the North Star. Just as the North Star remains in its place and the other stars revolve around it, so too the cultivator must preserve the unmoving center of his own nature.
Worldly people labor for long-lasting enterprises, but if in the process they injure their original nature, their achievements cannot endure. Businesses built on greed and immorality may appear successful for a time, but they do not last.
Only by holding to the Dao does one’s virtue shine steadily through time. This, he says, is what it means not to lose one’s proper place.
Lü Chunyang’s conclusion is that one should first rectify oneself and then influence others by example. If the heart contains the Dao and remains settled without agitation, then one naturally becomes a model, and others incline toward the right path.
The North Star becomes a symbol not only for rulership but for the inward sovereign center of the person. In Buddhist terms, the speaker maps this onto levels of consciousness, saying that the deeper true center should remain unmoving while the other consciousnesses align around it.
If that center moves, the senses scatter outward and become “thieves,” carrying the mind away. If the center remains still, outer life naturally becomes ordered.
The lecturer closes by identifying “one’s place” with one’s original nature, one’s true self. To not lose this place is to keep the heart unmoving, like the North Star abiding in its position.
He stresses that Laozi’s idea of endurance or “not dying” does not mean preserving the physical body forever. It points instead to the enduring reality of the true self, the unconditioned nature that is not exhausted with bodily death.
He then ties the whole chapter together: self-knowledge, self-mastery, contentment, steadfast practice, and not losing one’s original nature all belong together. Because time is up, he says the next line—“To die and yet not perish is longevity”—will have to wait for the next session.
This literal version consolidates the lecture’s English material into continuous notes, keeping close to the spoken sequence while preserving explanatory detail.