Chapter 56第56章

Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. It's rather embarrassing for someone like me who makes a living by talking, but there it is. The point isn't that wise people are mute — it's that the deepest things cannot be captured in chatter. So you block up the openings, shut the doors of the senses, blunt the sharpness, untangle the knots, soften the glare, and settle with the dust. This is called the mysterious oneness. And here's what's fascinating about someone in this state: you can't get close to them in the ordinary sense, and you can't push them away either. You can't profit them, you can't harm them. You can't elevate them, you can't debase them. They've become like water — taking any shape, fitting any container, impossible to grab or pin down. And precisely because of this utter freedom from being categorized, they become the most honored thing under heaven.

This is Lao-tzu's great epistemological koan: the one who knows doesn't talk, and the one who talks doesn't know. It's the boundary where language fails as a technology for communicating the real. You close the sense gates, blunt every sharp edge of distinction, dissolve all the tangles of categorization, merge your light with the ordinary, become one with the dust — and this is what he calls the Mysterious Sameness. Now here's the radical implication: a being in this state is beyond all the games of culture. You cannot flatter them or shun them. You cannot help or harm them. You cannot ennoble or degrade them. They've dropped below — or risen above — the entire grid of social manipulation. And I think this is essentially a description of the shamanic state, the person who has dissolved the cultural operating system and made direct contact with the Tao. That's why they become the most valued thing in the world — because they're the only ones who are actually free.

Wang Bi's commentary here is wonderfully terse. 'To follow what is natural' — that is what the one who knows does. 'To create incidents and starting points' — that is what the one who speaks does. You see the contrast? The knower simply goes along with what is, while the speaker is always manufacturing occasions, stirring things up. Then we get the practice: block the openings, shut the gates, blunt the sharp edges — this is about holding to one's essential quality, one's original nature. 'Resolve the tangles' means to sort out distinctions back to their roots. 'Remove the sources of contention.' When you make no special display, nothing in the world has reason to compete with you or take sides. And so you arrive at what Wang Bi calls the Mysterious Sameness — you cannot be drawn close or pushed away, cannot be benefited or harmed, cannot be ennobled or debased. Nothing whatsoever can be added to you. That is why you become the most precious thing under heaven.

Wang Bi's gloss here is almost algebraically compressed. The one who knows follows the self-so, the spontaneous — 因自然也. The one who speaks creates affairs and starting points — 造事端也. This is the fundamental distinction between two modes of being: participation in what is already happening versus the manufacture of new occasions for entanglement. The practice he outlines is essentially a phenomenological reduction: block the openings, shut the gates, blunt sharpness — what he calls 'holding to one's fundamental quality.' Untangle the knots — return each distinction to its root. Remove the origins of contention. And here is the key: when there is no special display, no point of conspicuous difference, then things have nothing to compete over. The result is what he calls the Mysterious Sameness — a state beyond the reach of all relational categories. You cannot befriend it or alienate it. You cannot profit or harm it. You cannot elevate or debase it. Wang Bi says 「無物可以加之也」 — nothing can be added to it. This is a description of ontological completeness. And THAT is why it becomes the most valued thing in all-under-heaven.