Chapter Seven: The Daoist Perspective -- The Great Sound Is Rarefied, and the Music of Heaven

Section 1: The Music Theory of the Most High (Laozi) -- "The Great Sound Is Rarefied"

"The great square has no corners; the great vessel is late in completion; the great sound is rarefied; the great image has no form." (Laozi, Chapter 41)

"The great sound is rarefied" -- the greatest sound transcends the level of audible sound. On the surface this opposes Master Xun's rich descriptions, but the two are complementary: Master Xun approaches the Way of Heaven through sounding music; the Most High points out that the Way of Heaven itself is "rarefied." Master Xun's endpoint is the Most High's starting point.

Section 2: Master Zhuang's "Music of Heaven," "Music of Earth," and "Music of Humanity"

Master Zhuang's "three musics" (Zhuangzi, "On the Equality of Things"): the music of humanity is humanly made sound; the music of earth is the wind through nature's hollows; the music of heaven is the fundamental power that makes all things sound of themselves -- the Way.

Master Xun's "imagery of music" belongs to the "music of humanity" -- yet by mapping it onto the cosmos, he shows that human music is in communion with nature. The tension between the two reflects the fundamental Confucian-Daoist divergence on "human making."

Section 3: "Xianchi" -- The Daoist Sublime Music

The Zhuangzi, "The Turning of Heaven," describes the Yellow Emperor's "Xianchi" music -- it begins with terror, passes through lassitude, and ends in bewilderment, ultimately dissolving the listener's self. This is the Daoist summit: "the great sound is rarefied."

Section 4: The Deep Dialogue Between Daoist and Confucian Music

The two traditions share deep common ground: both take the Way of Heaven as the ultimate reference point; both acknowledge the communion between music and nature; both prize "harmony" as the supreme value. The richness of pre-Qin thought lies in this "harmony without uniformity."