VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 17, SECTION 1
The Cook Lord Wenhui Sent For
The last three chapters stood on the side of the account book, reckoning that gap. This chapter turns the eyes across, to look at the hundred people standing in the workshop. Do they really have only the one cell they are apportioned? In their hands, is there really not one card? To answer this, we go back more than twenty-three hundred years, into a hall. On the dais sits a ruler, below the dais stands a cook, and the ruler, watching him lay hand to the work, is struck dumb.
One. That hall
Draw the scene in. That day, Lord Wenhui had sent for a cook surnamed Ding, and he wished to watch this cook cut apart an ox. The ox is led up, the cook steps forward, his hand presses on, his shoulder leans in, his foot bears down, his knee thrusts up, and then he lays hand to it.
In the Zhuangzi it is written so. The knife goes in with a hiss, and there is no note out of the music, in tune with the Mulberry Grove dance, in time with the measure of the Jingshou, runs the line in the Zhuangzi, in the Nurturing of Life. That sound, stroke after stroke, and not one stroke off the beat, as though dancing an ancient dance, as though keeping an ancient tune. Think what a scene this is: he is taking an ox apart, blood, bone, sinew, hide, and it is like a dance. Lord Wenhui was struck dumb, and he said one line: ah, that your craft could reach this height.
Two. The line the cook answered with
The cook set down the tool in his hand and answered. His very first line pushed Lord Wenhui back.
What your servant loves is the Way, and it is a step beyond craft, runs the line in the Zhuangzi, in the Nurturing of Life. Chew this line. He says: what I love is the Way, one step further on from craft. What is craft? Craft is the skill of the hand, drilled out, made practiced. What is the Way? The Way is that his eyes, looking at this ox, are not the same as others’ eyes.
He goes on: in the first three years I studied, what my eyes saw was a whole ox, and after three years, my eyes could no longer see a whole ox. Notice this line, he does not say he saw more clearly, he says he could no longer see it. What did he see? He saw, on the body of that ox, between the sinew and the bone, the seams that are there by birth.
Three. Nineteen years, an edge like a fresh whetting
The line that comes next is the fiercest place in this story.
Now the knife of your servant is nineteen years old, and it has cut apart several thousand oxen, and the edge of the knife is as though fresh from the whetstone, runs the line in the Zhuangzi, in the Nurturing of Life. Nineteen years, several thousand oxen taken apart, and the edge still as though just lifted off the whetstone. Set the other two beside him. A good cook changes his knife once a year, because he is cutting, cutting sinew and cutting flesh, and it dulls fast. An ordinary cook changes his once a month, because he is hacking, hacking onto bone, and the edge rolls.
And he, nineteen years. Because he never once touched sinew, never touched bone, he goes by the seam. The seam is there to begin with, on the ox, born with those hollows, that others cannot see and he can. He sends that thin sliver of a blade into that seam, the seam wide, the blade thin. Roomy, roomy, and for the roving blade there is surely room to spare, runs the line in the Zhuangzi, in the Nurturing of Life. Wide and easy, and roving through it, there is still room over.
Four. In this passage, hold one character
This story, told ten thousand times across twenty-three hundred years, has most people read one phrase out of it: practice makes perfect. Here it must be said, the one who stops reading at practiced has read this story shallow. Practiced is drilled out, drill ten thousand times and anyone grows practiced. But the character Cook Ding spoke is not practiced, it is the Way.
What I love is the Way, and it is a step beyond craft, he drew the line clean himself: what I want is one step further on from craft. What is that step? That step is: he saw the seam others cannot see. Join this layer to the last chapter. The last chapter spoke of Li Bing, and why did Li Bing set that fish mouth at exactly that spot? Li Bing too saw a seam, the river water’s own seam. One taming water, one taking apart an ox, and what they set out is one and the same position.
Five. Now, turn the eyes onto Lord Wenhui
The story is told, but the person this section truly means to look at has not yet come on. Turn the eyes, from the cook, to that ruler on the dais. Who is Lord Wenhui? He is the ruler, he has soldiers, has grain, has land, has the power of life and death. Who is the cook? He is a servant, and his standing, in that age, was low as low can be.
That day, on the dais and below it, who was waiting on whom? It was Lord Wenhui seated there, waiting for this servant to lay hand to the work, it was Lord Wenhui who, having watched to the end, stood up and said to this servant one word, good. Look clear at this scene: in standing, the ruler is above and the cook below, yet in that moment, in that hall, the positions turned over.
Six. Why the position turns over
Why does it turn over? Because Lord Wenhui cannot find a second Cook Ding. This line is most ordinary, yet it is the key to this chapter. The cooks under heaven are past counting, and the cooks who change a knife once a year are past counting, and the ones who change once a month more still. But nineteen years, several thousand oxen, an edge still like a fresh whetting, there is only this one.
This position cannot be replaced. Carry back the line from chapter fourteen, section one: the many position can be replaced, the few position cannot. Scarce is not high, this was spoken, but scarce will turn a position over onto its other face.
Seven. What this section set, crossing to the next
This section asked a cook out. The tool in his hand has run nineteen years, taken apart several thousand oxen, and the edge is still like a fresh whetting, because he never touches sinew, never touches bone, he goes by the seam, and he says, what I want is the Way, a step beyond craft. And that ruler on the dais sat there waiting for him to lay hand to the work, and having watched to the end, stood up and said one word, good. The standing did not change, the ruler is still the ruler, the cook still the cook, yet the position, in that hall, turned over. The root of the turning is two characters only: scarce.
There is surely a question in the chest now: one cook, is he not a single case? What can a matter in one hall prove? The next section, Zhuangzi has another story, fiercer than this one. That time, the one waiting outside the door is a ruler, and what he waits for is a carpenter, and to wait for this carpenter, he fasted seven days.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section 2 Zi Qing Carves the Stand, and the Marquis of Lu Fasts to Wait for Him