Skillful Means and the De Section
The lecturer opens by explaining that the word *fangbian* (“expedient means,” “convenience,” “skillful adaptation”) can be understood in more than one way. If one is careless with wording, a single sound or phrase can lead to completely different meanings and create absurd misunderstandings.
He gives examples and jokes to show that identical pronunciations do not necessarily carry identical meanings. So when the text speaks of “expedient means,” it should not be taken loosely or sentimentally.
The practical point seems to be this: “convenience” does not mean passivity or evasion. In some contexts it means seizing the right opportunity and responding appropriately. If one refuses to act when action is required—for example, when defense is needed—disaster follows. So the mind should not drift into confused or self-indulgent interpretations.
Here the lecturer discusses the phrase *wunian* (“no-thought”), saying that it can be understood in more than one way.
In one usage, the character *wu* does not negate the word that follows; it acts as a grammatical particle that strengthens the expression. In that sense, “no-thought” can actually mean “you must keep it in mind,” not “do not think at all.” He cites older commentarial traditions to support this reading.
But in Chan or sudden-enlightenment discourse, “no-thought” means something different: not the absence of all thought, but the absence of false, crooked, or deluded thought. It does **not** mean the elimination of right thought.
So the lecturer warns that words must be handled very carefully. If one reads them mechanically, one easily turns living teaching into nonsense.
The next discussion turns to the word *ren* (“forbearance,” “endurance,” “patience”), and the lecturer sorts through several overlapping meanings.
One meaning is simple endurance: forcing oneself to bear something difficult. Another is restraining selfish impulses. Yet another, in some contexts, leans toward hardness or severity.
He then contrasts these with the Buddhist virtue of *patient endurance* (*anren*): when people slander, insult, or attack you without cause, you remain inwardly settled and able to bear it. In Buddhist teaching this kind of endurance is one of the pāramitās—the capacity to remain unshaken amid inner and outer humiliation or harm.
So “patience” is not always the same thing. Sometimes it means grim suppression; in the better sense, it means a stable heart that can bear injury without losing compassion.
The lecturer adds an opposite and more disturbing sense of *anren*: becoming calmly settled in cruelty. He cites the *Zuo Commentary*, where “anren” can mean being at ease in doing ruthless things.
In that historical example, a ruler seizes power violently, harms kin, and pursues advantage without moral restraint. Because he can act cruelly without remorse, he loses the hearts of relatives and people alike. Such a person may gain power for a moment, but cannot succeed in any enduring way.
So the same expression can point in two very different directions: - in Buddhist ethics, it means peaceful endurance of suffering; - in political and moral criticism, it can mean being coldly comfortable with brutality.
With that, the lecturer says the evidential material for Chapter 37 is finished. The next lecture will move into Chapter 38, the beginning of the *De* section.
The lecture now turns to Chapter 38, beginning with the line “Highest virtue is not virtuous; therefore it has virtue. Lower virtue never loses sight of virtue; therefore it has no virtue.”
The lecturer first quotes Jiang Xizhang, who says that “highest virtue” is what the *Doctrine of the Mean* calls the utmost virtue that has “no sound and no smell”—that is, virtue so deep and real that it does not advertise itself.
He then tells the story of Jiang Xizhang and Wang Fengyi. Jiang was highly learned, eloquent, and proud of his scholarship. Wang Fengyi, by contrast, was outwardly just a rough, illiterate man working in the fields. Yet when Jiang asked him whether lecturing on or annotating the *Diamond Sutra* could make one a Buddha, Wang replied no: one becomes a Buddha only by **living according to it**.
That answer won Jiang over. The lecturer uses the story to make a central point for the *De* section: virtue is not something proved by talk, reputation, or commentary, but by actual practice.
The lecturer explains “highest virtue” through the *Doctrine of the Mean*: true and utmost virtue has “no sound and no smell.” In other words, the highest kind of moral power does not rely on display, emotional manipulation, spectacle, or miracle claims.
He contrasts this with lower methods of influencing people—eloquent talk, dramatic signs, wonder-stories, or outward show. Those may impress people, but they remain secondary and shallow compared with the silent transforming power of genuine virtue.
He then turns the point personally and even humorously, calling himself a “foolish old man” for insisting that the Way should be taught without charging money. He says that if anyone seems truly “foolish” in this way, it is Śākyamuni Buddha, who renounced worldly wealth, fame, and privilege and spent his life teaching without profit.
The lecturer also reflects on his own earlier use of miracle stories or “spiritual responses,” saying that he later stopped emphasizing them. In his view, real teaching is not based on sensational signs but on the truth that leads beyond birth and death.
This section continues the same contrast. The lecturer says that when Buddha began speaking the deepest teaching, many listeners—human and nonhuman alike—left because they preferred religion in the form of blessings, incense, reward, and visible benefit.
But the true teaching, he says, is not “burn incense and receive protection.” Right teaching protects the good whether or not they flatter the gods. That is why deep teaching is hard to hear: people like lower virtue because it promises reward, status, and visible response; they do not like higher virtue because it asks for truth without bargaining.
He returns to the central distinction: - **Highest virtue** transforms without noise, display, or self-advertisement. - **Lower virtue** likes spectacle, miracle talk, and public spiritual performance.
From this he draws a practical conclusion: transmitting the Way should not be done for money, fame, offerings, or hidden motives. Once there is calculation and self-interest, one has already fallen into the mentality of lower virtue.
The lecturer now cites Lü Chunyang’s interpretation. Highest virtue, he says, is what Buddhism calls giving without attachment to form. One performs good without a grasping heart. Because of that, one’s virtue is not ostentatious, and one does not inwardly claim ownership of it. That is real virtue.
Lower virtue is the opposite. It wants its goodness to be seen. It still calculates blessing and reward, so in the end it loses true virtue while preserving only the appearance of virtue.
He then explains the phrase “deceiving the world and stealing a name.” To “steal a name” is to seize a reputation one does not truly deserve. Outwardly one may perform charitable or moral acts, but inwardly one is seeking status. That is not true merit.
So the distinction is clear: - if no name is being sought, that approaches highest virtue; - if reputation is being harvested through moral display, it becomes false virtue.
The lecturer says that the whole *Daodejing* can be gathered into two hinge-lines: the opening of the *Dao* section (“The Dao that can be spoken is not the constant Dao”) and this opening of the *De* section (“Highest virtue is not virtue…”).
In his summary: - the *Dao* section points back to the nameless source; - the *De* section distinguishes true virtue from performative virtue.
Highest virtue acts without self-consciousness. It does good without inwardly saying, “I am doing good.” When others praise such a person, he does not feel he possesses some great moral achievement. Precisely that absence of self-claim is what makes the virtue real.
Lower virtue, by contrast, performs good while wanting it recognized. The lecturer gives a practical example: if someone quietly installs a safety mirror at a dangerous intersection, the right response is to be grateful for the benefit—not to go around announcing, “I did it.” Once the deed is used to harvest personal credit, it loses depth and becomes moral self-advertisement.
The next lecture resumes the same opening line of Chapter 38 and says that two points still need fuller explanation: highest virtue as non-attached giving, and lower virtue as attached giving.
To explain this, the lecturer turns to the *Diamond Sutra*: one should give without abiding in form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharma. Though the wording is short, he says, its meaning is very broad.
He also pauses to explain “bodhisattva.” Some are already accomplished beings who appear in bodhisattva form to save others; others are practitioners cultivating the bodhisattva path. The key distinction he draws is between the unmoving nature of Buddhahood and the compassionate functioning of the bodhisattva.
His analogy is a lamp: before it is switched on, its nature is there but not active; once lit, it functions and gives light. In this comparison, Buddha is the unmoving nature, and bodhisattva is that nature entering compassionate activity.
The lecturer now gets very practical about “non-abiding giving.” He recalls people who supported his work quietly—contributing money, labor, and help without ever announcing themselves or claiming credit. That, he says, is closer to real virtue.
By contrast, once charity becomes mixed with calculation—keeping percentages back, using donations for side purposes, or seeking praise—it has already become “abiding” charity.
He then quotes Lü Chunyang’s breakdown of the *Diamond Sutra* formula: - not giving in order to be **seen** is “not abiding in form,” - not giving in order to be **heard about** is “not abiding in sound,” - not giving in order to be **praised** is “not abiding in fragrance,” - not giving in order to be **repaid** is “not abiding in taste,” - not giving in order to **benefit oneself** is “not abiding in touch,” - not giving in order to gain **heavenly blessing** is “not abiding in dharma.”
When giving is done without clinging to any of these motives, that is what “practicing charity without abiding” means.
To explain “not abiding in form,” the lecturer tells a long story from his younger days as a traveling merchant during a crowded temple festival in Yilan.
The scene includes many beggars, some genuine and some fraudulent. He says some people dressed in rags by day and lived quite differently by night; others pretended to be blind or disabled but gave themselves away as soon as money appeared. Yet among them there were also truly destitute people.
His own view was simple: if one has more, give more; if one has less, give less. Give according to one’s means and intention, without overdramatizing it.
What struck him was the contrast between quiet giving and theatrical giving. When he gave a little, someone mocked him. Later another man gave five dollars in front of a crowd, flourishing the coin so everyone could see, and received applause. That, the lecturer says, is exactly what it means to “abide in form”: doing charity in a way meant to be noticed.
The lecturer now explains the six kinds of non-abiding charity one by one.
First, “not abiding in form” does **not** mean hiding one’s giving like a thief. It means not giving **for the sake of being seen**. If people happen to see, that is not the issue; the issue is intentional display.
Likewise: - “not abiding in sound” means not giving in order for people to hear about it; - “not abiding in fragrance” means not giving in order to be praised or publicly honored; - “not abiding in taste” means not giving in order to be repaid with gratitude; - “not abiding in touch” means not giving for one’s own material advantage; - “not abiding in dharma” means not giving in order to bargain with heaven for blessing.
He gives several examples. One man helps someone when he is poor, then later becomes angry when that person does not repay him with special treatment. That is not free giving; it is invested giving. Another man donates land and school buildings in a remote area, but the hidden result is that the surrounding land value rises and he profits enormously. Outwardly it looks charitable, but inwardly it is still self-serving.
Finally, he warns against attachment to emptiness as well. If others choose to praise you, you do not need to demand it—but neither should you theatrically tear up the certificate and insult them. True non-attachment is neither grasping at praise nor making a display of rejecting praise.
This literal version consolidates the lecture’s English material into continuous notes, keeping close to the spoken sequence while preserving explanatory detail.