VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 33, SECTION 1
Is the labor alive, or dead
The front half of the term weighed labor, divided it, watched it flow, watched its bound. But one question at the very root has pressed down unasked: one same share of labor, why is it in this man’s hand alive, and in that man’s hand dead. This chapter speaks of living labor, and closes a floor under the front half of the term. First cut this matter open, layer by layer.
One, first look at two men doing one same thing
Look at two men, at one same thing: carrying plates and setting dishes in an eating house.
The first man, setting a dish is setting a dish. He puts the plate down on the table, no look on his face, his eyes not on the guest, his mind not here, and at the day’s end how many plates he carried he himself does not know. He is only enduring these eight hours, waiting to be off. The second man, also sets dishes. But when he sets a dish, he takes one look at whether this table has more old folk or more children, he moves the hottest plate to a place where it will not be knocked over, he keeps in mind that the guest who often comes does not eat the hot spice. One same eight hours, one same carrying of plates, and these two men, they seem to do one same thing, and seem to do a thing not one at all.
Take those rules from before to weigh them, and these two may weigh out much the same: one same hours, one same count of pieces. But you need only take one meal in each of these two houses, and you know at once, these two shares of labor stand apart as heaven from earth. One is dead, one is alive. This telling apart of alive and dead, those six rules before, not one weighs it out. Yet it is exactly the most needful thing in labor.
Two, the alive and the dead of labor is not in what you do, it is in how you do it
First put down one notion: to hold that the alive and dead of labor is by whether the work you do is high or low, is fine or mean. It is not so.
It is not that carrying plates is dead labor, and sitting in an office is living labor. Just the reverse. A man carrying plates can do this share of labor living and vivid, do it till a warmth stirs in the heart. A man sitting in the high tower can do his labor dead as ash, all day drifting, waiting to be off. The alive and dead of labor has nothing at all to do with the high or low, the dear or mean of the work. It is not in what you do, it is in how you do it.
So this how you do it, where does it part. It parts on three things. The first, whether you have put the heart in, or only set the body there. The second, whether in your eye there is the man you are serving, the thing you are doing, or in your eye there is only that pay slip, only the hour to be off. The third, whether in this labor you can see a little meaning, or you feel this is purely trading your life for money, not one bit of sense in it. Put the heart in, the eye holding man and thing, seeing the meaning, and this share of labor is alive. Turn it round, the man not in though the body is, the eye holding only money and the hour, seeing not half a bit of meaning, and this share of labor is dead.
Three, Zhuangzi’s Qing the carpenter, who did a labor alive to the very extreme
To speak of living labor, Qing the carpenter must be called. You met him last term, and this chapter calls him back, because he did a share of labor alive, alive to the very extreme.
Qing was a carpenter, and the wooden frame he made for hanging the bells and chimes, those who saw it made were struck, saying this is not made by a man, it is made by a ghost or a god. The lord of Lu asked him, what is your secret. Qing spoke a passage, and take the most needful line: I fast to still the heart. So runs the line in the Zhuangzi.
Put it plain. To fast is to keep oneself clean and clear. To still the heart is to let the heart go quiet. Qing says, before he set his hand to that frame, he first fasted, and let his heart go quiet, bit by bit. Fasted some days, and he forgot reward and fame. Fasted more, and he forgot the praise and blame of others. Fasted more, and he forgot even that he had four limbs and a body. At the last, the heart clean and clear, and only that block of wood and that frame left. Then he went into the mountain, to look at which tree was born already grown to the shape of that frame.
See how alive this share of Qing’s labor is. He is not completing a task, he has given his whole heart over to that block of wood. In his eye there is no wage, no eye of others, no self, only the thing to be done. This is the very extreme of living labor: the heart wholly in, and the man and the thing joined into one. What comes out then, of itself is as though it had a god in it. This aliveness, no rule before it can weigh out, yet it is the whole reason that frame is astonishing.
Four, why living labor is so needful
You may ask: a share of labor, dead is dead, alive is alive, so long as the work is done, is that not enough, why make so much of it.
It is needful, greatly. The first layer, it is needful to the man doing the thing himself. A man spends the greater part of his waking hours on labor. This long stretch of hours, whether you pass it living, or endure it dead, are two wholly different lives. The man who does his labor dead has, for nothing, endured and burned away the longest stretch of his day. The man who does his labor alive, that stretch of hours is his living, savored time. This is no matter of money, this is the matter of how a man passes this one life of his.
The second layer, it is needful to others, to the whole group. That man who did the carrying of plates alive warmed a whole houseful of guests. Qing doing the carpentry alive struck all who saw that frame. Living labor spills over, flows onto others, lets others too get the good of it. And dead labor only barely gets the thing done, and one more bit of warmth, one more bit of good, it cannot give. So living labor is not only the doing man’s own matter, it bears on how much this share of labor can, in the end, add to this world. This layer leads us to the nine kinds of living labor the next section will count.
Five, what this section set, crossing to the next
Good. This section cut open the alive and dead of labor.
Looking at two men carrying plates, it saw clear the telling apart of alive and dead, which the six rules before cannot weigh out, yet which is the most needful thing in labor. It made plain that the alive and dead is not in what high or low work you do, it is in how you do it: whether the heart is put in, whether the eye holds man and thing, whether the meaning is seen. It called Qing to be the very extreme of living labor: he fasts to still the heart, forgets reward, forgets others, forgets himself, and only the thing is left, the man and the thing joined into one, and what comes out is as though it had a god in it.
The position this section set is: labor has its alive and its dead, and the alive and dead is not in what you do but in how you do it, with what heart, seeing meaning or not, and this telling apart is one no rule can weigh out.
So, living labor being so needful, in what places in the end does it live. A man in a day of labor, the places where he can put the heart in, which few are they. The next section counts living labor out, one by one, counts nine kinds.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.