XL. A Person Dwelling in the Midst: Neither Master of the Myriad Things, Nor Without Any Role to Play

Pre-Qin thought so often seeks the correct path between two dangers: one is a person's arrogant self-exaltation, using private desire to enslave the myriad things of Heaven and Earth; the other is a person abandoning responsibility, pushing everything onto the Mandate of Heaven. The path given by the first chapter of the Xici is "one's place is formed in the very midst of it." A person is in the midst -- not above it, and not outside it either; he has his limits, and he also has what he is able to do.

Drought, flood, cold, and heat are not something a person can command -- this is his limit; repairing ditches and canals, storing granaries, and not seizing the farming season are what he is able to do. A person's temperament has its own bias, and his environment has its already-formed configuration -- this is his limit; choosing teachers and friends, practicing ritual propriety and righteousness, and reflecting on and correcting one's own faults are what he is able to do. A state has its historical customs, geography, and resources -- this is its limit; employing the worthy, establishing trust, nurturing the people, and rectifying the law are what it is able to do. Knowing one's limits keeps a person from acting recklessly; knowing what one is able to do keeps a person from indolence.

"Knowing one's fate" (zhi ming) is therefore not resignation to fate. The Master, at fifty, knew the Mandate of Heaven, and thereafter still studied tirelessly and taught without weariness, traveling widely to carry out the Way. Knowing one's fate keeps action from taking success, failure, praise, or blame as its sole measure, without abolishing action itself. Master Meng's statement that one should not waver over an early or long life, but cultivate oneself and await one's fate, is likewise fully exerting oneself and then peacefully accepting what lies beyond one's control. Full exertion and awaiting are matched together, just as Qian's knowing and Kun's doing still return, in the end, to the great transformation of Heaven and Earth.

The Most High's non-action likewise does not mean doing nothing at all. What non-action discards is reckless action, forced action, and private action, letting a person's action not destroy the myriad things' own inherent order. If water conservancy follows the lay of the land, half the effort brings great effect; if moral instruction follows the good sprouts already present in human feeling, the people draw close and it can endure; if governmental decree accords with the people's livelihood, it is easy to follow and achieves merit. The more an action accords with the Way, the fewer traces of artificial imposition it leaves behind -- and this is precisely a lofty and enlightened forming of one's place.

The forming of a person's place must also accept feedback from the myriad things. Barren land shows that tillage may have been unsuited to it; boiling resentment among the people shows that governance may have caused harm; a household growing estranged shows that closeness and righteousness may not have been fully realized. To regard all this only as the outside world's disobedience, unwilling to reflect on oneself, is to set oneself up as master. Kun's bringing things to completion demands looking at the result; Qian's knowing of the great beginning demands correcting the next beginning by that result. A person's place is formed through continual learning, not completed and self-conferred in a single morning.