Chapter Fourteen: "In Eating, Nothing Is Better Than Stopping Short of Fullness; in Thinking, Nothing Is Better Than Not Pushing to the Extreme. Attain the Balance of Proper Measure, and It Will Come of Its Own Accord." -- The Way of Moderation and Natural Arrival

I. "In Eating, Nothing Is Better Than Stopping Short of Fullness" -- Moderation in Diet

"In eating, nothing is better than stopping short of fullness" -- do not eat to repletion.

Why begin with diet$49 Because eating is humanity's most basic physiological need and the desire most easily indulged to excess. If the cultivator cannot even moderate eating, how much less the cultivation of heart-qi$50

"Stopping short of fullness" is not abstinence from food but avoidance of excess. This embodies a principle of the highest importance in pre-Qin thought: the middle way, moderation. Not asceticism but temperance; not fasting but not gorging.

Chapter 12 of the Laozi: "The five flavors dull the palate" -- excessive eating (the pursuit of the five flavors) disorients the sense of taste and deranges the body.

Another passage of the Guanzi "Neiye" offers a more detailed discussion: "The principle of eating: too full, and one is injured, the body unsound; too hungry, and the bones dry and the blood congeals. Between fullness and hunger lies what may be called harmonious completion. This is where vital essence lodges and knowledge is born. When one loses the measure of hunger and fullness, make provision. When full, move briskly; when hungry, broaden thought; when old, think far ahead. When full, if one does not move briskly, qi does not circulate to the four limbs. When hungry, if one does not broaden thought, fullness goes to waste. When old, if one does not think far ahead, exhaustion quickly overtakes."

This passage treats the moderation of diet in detail: overeating injures the body; starving desiccates the bones and congeals the blood. The balance between fullness and hunger -- that is the optimal state for vital essence to lodge and wisdom to arise. And different states require different responses: when full, exercise vigorously; when hungry, expand the mind; in old age, think long-term.

II. "In Thinking, Nothing Is Better Than Not Pushing to the Extreme" -- Moderation in Thought

Zhi means the extreme, the limit, the uttermost. "Not pushing to the extreme" (wu zhi) means not driving to the limit. "In thinking, nothing is better than not pushing to the extreme" -- do not push thought to the breaking point.

This forms an exquisite triangular relationship with the earlier passages:

• "Think on it, think on it, and think on it again" -- encouraging deep thought (positive)
• "If one thinks without ceasing, one is internally depleted and externally worn thin" -- warning against obsessive thinking (negative)
• "In thinking, nothing is better than not pushing to the extreme" -- summarizing the principle: think with measure, do not push to the extreme

Together these three constitute a complete dialectic: think, but do not overthink; go deep, but do not cling; engage the heart-mind, but do not exhaust it.

This dialectical mode of thought pervades all of pre-Qin Daoism. Chapter 77 of the Laozi: "Is not the Way of Heaven like the drawing of a bow$51 What is high it presses down; what is low it lifts up. What has excess it reduces; what is deficient it supplements. The Way of Heaven reduces the excessive and supplements the insufficient." The operation of the Way of Heaven is ceaseless balancing -- reducing the excess, increasing the deficiency. So too with cultivation: where there is deficiency, increase (think on it, think on it); where there is excess, reduce (do not push to the extreme).

III. "The Balance of Proper Measure" -- The Unity of Restraint and Fitness

Jie means restraint. Shi means what is fitting. Qi means equilibrium, harmony. "The balance of proper measure" (jie shi zhi qi) means the state in which restraint and fitness reach harmonious unity.

Jie emphasizes limitation -- not exceeding a certain bound. Shi emphasizes aptness -- being precisely at the optimal point. When the two are unified, one reaches the perfect state of neither excess nor deficiency.

Chapter 29 of the Laozi: "Therefore the sage eliminates the extreme, the extravagant, and the excessive." "Extreme" (shen) is excess; "extravagant" (she) is profligacy; "excessive" (tai) is complacency. To eliminate excess, profligacy, and complacency is to achieve "the balance of proper measure."

IV. "It Will Come of Its Own Accord" -- The Ultimate Realm of Spontaneous Arrival

Bi (that, it) refers to the Dao, to all things, to everything the cultivation seeks. "Will come of its own accord" (jiang zi zhi) means it will arrive naturally.

"It will come of its own accord" is the final statement of the entire passage and the ultimate destination of its thought: you need not deliberately seek it; you need only achieve the balance of restraint and fitness, and the Dao will come on its own.

This echoes the earlier "can you refrain from seeking it in others and find it in yourself$52" -- not seeking outward but obtaining within; not striving deliberately but arriving naturally.

Why does "the balance of proper measure" cause the Dao to "come of its own accord"$53 Because the Dao is already everywhere: "The Dao, as it resides between Heaven and Earth, is so great that nothing lies beyond it, so small that nothing lies within it" (Guanzi, "Xinshu Shang"). The Dao is not a distant thing but fills Heaven and Earth, present at every moment. The reason one fails to perceive it is not that the Dao is absent but that one's own excesses -- excessive desire, excessive thinking, excessive action -- veil its manifestation. When these excesses are restrained to the proper measure, the veil dissolves and the Dao naturally appears -- this is "it will come of its own accord."

Chapter 48 of the Laozi: "In the pursuit of the Dao, one loses daily; losing and losing again, until one reaches non-action. Non-action, yet nothing is left undone." Pursuing the Dao is continual diminishment -- diminishing the excessive. When diminishment reaches its limit ("the balance of proper measure"), one arrives at non-action. In non-action, the Dao arrives of itself -- "non-action, yet nothing is left undone."

V. Viewed from High Antiquity: The Contemplation of Nature's Spontaneity

The intellectual root of "it will come of its own accord" lies in the ancients' contemplation of the Way of Heaven.

The operation of Heaven and Earth requires no external impetus: the sun rises and sets of its own accord; the moon waxes and wanes of its own accord; the four seasons revolve of their own accord; all things grow, flourish, are harvested, and stored of their own accord. All this "comes of its own accord" -- naturally, spontaneously.

The Zhouyi, Hexagram Fu (Return), Tuan Commentary: "In Return, does one not see the heart-mind of Heaven and Earth$54" The heart-mind of Heaven and Earth is expressed in precisely this natural operation -- without human intervention, everything is accomplished of itself.

From this, the ancients drew the insight that human cultivation, too, should emulate the spontaneity of Heaven and Earth: without forcing, without contriving, without excess. When one reaches the proper state, the Dao appears naturally -- just as flowers naturally bloom when spring arrives.

The Shangshu, "Yao Dian": "He thereupon charged Xi and He reverently to follow great Heaven, to calculate and delineate the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, and respectfully to communicate the seasons to the people." Emperor Yao did not seek to reshape Heaven and Earth but to "reverently follow" (qin ruo) the Way of Heaven, observing the movements of sun, moon, and stars and ordering human affairs according to the celestial seasons. This is precisely "attain the balance of proper measure, and it will come of its own accord" applied at the level of governance.