The Song of the Yanshi Wind

Seven days without cooked food, Confucius beats time on a dead tree and a dead branch, singing the wind-song of the Yanshi with instruments but no score, sounds but no notes — and it strikes the heart like a plow. When Yan Hui stares, the Master teaches the four formulas: accepting heaven's losses is easy, not accepting people's gains is hard, no beginning that is not an end, and human and heaven are one.

Daoist ·

PRIMARY SOURCETRADITIONAL / LINEAGE INTERPRETATION

The passage

孔子穷于陈、蔡之间，七日不火食，左据槁木，右击槁枝，而歌猋一作”焱”氏之风，有其具而无其数，有其声而无宫角，木声与人声，犁然有当于人之心。颜回端拱还目而窥之。仲尼恐其广己而造大也，爱己而造哀也，曰：“回，无受天损易，无受人益难，无始而非卒也，人与天一也。夫今之歌者，其谁乎？“回曰：“敢问无受天损易？“仲尼曰：“饥渴寒暑，穷桎不行，天地之行也，运物之泄也，言与之偕逝之谓也，为人臣者，不敢去之。执臣之道犹若是，而况乎所以待天乎？""何谓无受人益难？“仲尼曰：“始用四达，爵禄并至而不穷，物之所利，乃非己也，吾命有在外者也。君子不为盗，贤人不为窃，吾若取之，何哉？故曰：鸟莫知于鷾鸸，目之所不宜处，不给视，虽落其实，弃之而走；其畏人也，而袭诸人间社稷存焉尔一作’耳’。""何谓无始而非卒？“仲尼曰：“化其万物，而不知其禅之者，焉知其所终？焉知其所始？正而待之而已耳。""何谓人与天一邪？“仲尼曰：“有人，天也。有天，亦天也。人之不能有天，性也。圣人晏然，体逝而终矣。”

Confucius was at the end of his rope between Chen and Cai, seven days without a cooked meal, his left hand resting on a dead tree, his right beating a dead branch, singing the wind-song of the Yanshi — he had the instruments but not the score, the sounds but not the notes, and the wood-sound and the human-sound together plowed into people’s hearts. Yan Hui stood straight and turned his eyes to look at him. Confucius, fearing that he would broaden himself into grandiosity or cherish himself into grief, said: “Hui — accepting heaven’s losses is easy, not accepting people’s gains is hard; there is no beginning that is not an end; and the human and heaven are one. Who, then, is the one singing now?” Hui said: “May I ask why accepting heaven’s losses is easy?” Confucius said: “Hunger, thirst, cold, heat — being blocked and unable to move — these are the movement of heaven and earth, the discharge of the moving things; it means going along with them. A minister dares not leave his post; if the way of the minister is like this, how much more the way of awaiting heaven?” “Why is not accepting people’s gains hard?” Confucius said: “The moment you are put to use, everything opens: rank and salary arrive together without end — but what things profit you is not yours; your command sits outside you. The gentleman is no robber, the worthy man no thief — if I take them, what am I? Hence it is said: no bird is wiser than the swallow — where the eye does not belong, it does not give a glance; though the fruit drops before it, it abandons it and goes; it fears people, yet nests among their shrines and survives there.” “What is the beginning that is not an end?” Confucius said: “Things transform through the ten thousand forms without knowing the one who hands them over — how can we know their end? How can we know their beginning? Stand upright and await them, that is all.” “What is the human and heaven being one?” Confucius said: “To have a human — that is heaven; to have heaven — that too is heaven. That humans cannot have heaven is their nature. The sage calmly lets the body pass, and ends.”

Why this passage matters

• The singing skeleton. The chapter’s Confucius arc reaches its final image: seven days unfed, hands on a dead tree and a dead branch, singing — and the song’s description is the book’s own music-theory: 有其具而无其数，有其声而无宫角 (instruments but no score, sounds but no notes), yet 犁然有当于人之心 (it plows into people’s hearts). The dithering bird and the jade story taught him removal — of display, of accounting; this passage shows the result: a man with nothing left who makes music out of the nothing. The site’s theatre file holds the negative side (performance as display); this is the positive: performance with the score taken out.
• The four formulas and their asymmetry. The teaching is four theses, and the passage spends its energy on the asymmetry between the first two: 无受天损易 (accepting heaven’s losses is easy — hunger, cold, being blocked: these are just the weather of things, and a minister doesn’t quit his post for weather), 无受人益难 (not accepting people’s gains is hard — rank and salary arrive as if they were yours: 物之所利，乃非己也，吾命有在外者也 — what things profit you is not yours; your command sits outside you). The difficulty is precisely the profit-joining of the same chapter: gains are harder to refuse than losses are to bear, because gains come dressed as merit.
• The swallow, the chapter’s third bird. 鸟莫知于鷾鸸 — no bird is wiser than the swallow: it will not glance at what its eye does not belong on; it abandons fruit even when it drops before it; it fears people yet nests among their shrines and survives there. The site’s bird-family completes itself: the dithering bird hides inside the flock (never lead, never trail); the swallow nests inside the human world while refusing its food — proximity without taking. It is the chapter’s economic animal: the one creature that lives among the givers of gains and takes none.
• No beginning that is not an end. 无始而非卒也 — every beginning is already an ending — and its explanation is the book’s transformation-grammar at its plainest: 化其万物，而不知其禅之者 — things transform through the ten thousand forms without knowing the one who hands them over. 禅 here is the verb “to hand over/pass on” (the word’s core meaning, before its later Buddhist technical use) — the forms pass each other like relay sticks, and no form knows the passer. 焉知其所终焉知其所始 — so the question of beginnings and ends is dissolved into a posture: 正而待之而已耳 (stand upright and await them, that is all). The site’s transformation page holds the doctrine; this is its patience-clause.
• The one who is singing now. The passage’s pivot is the question Confucius slips into the teaching: 夫今之歌者，其谁乎 — who, then, is the one singing now? The site’s no-self line holds the family (the “I” is an inventory); here the question is asked musically: the singer with no score is precisely the person for whom “who is singing” has no fixed answer — 人与天一 (the human and heaven are one), and 有人，天也。有天，亦天也 (to have a human is heaven; to have heaven is heaven too). The close returns to the chapter’s steady tone: 圣人晏然，体逝而终矣 — the sage calmly lets the body pass, and ends. After the bird lesson and the jade lesson, this is the chapter’s third and last answer to the besieged man: play, don’t display; and when the body ends, let it.

Sources

• Zhuangzi ch. 20 (Shan Mu, outer chapter), the Yanshi-wind passage, verified against the Wikisource full chapter (retrieved 2026-10-07): 孔子穷于陈、蔡之间，七日不火食，左据槁木，右击槁枝，而歌猋一作焱氏之风，有其具而无其数，有其声而无宫角，木声与人声，犁然有当于人之心。颜回端拱还目而窥之。仲尼恐其广己而造大也，爱己而造哀也，曰：回，无受天损易，无受人益难，无始而非卒也，人与天一也。夫今之歌者，其谁乎？回曰：敢问无受天损易？仲尼曰：饥渴寒暑，穷桎不行，天地之行也，运物之泄也，言与之偕逝之谓也，为人臣者，不敢去之。执臣之道犹若是，而况乎所以待天乎？何谓无受人益难？仲尼曰：始用四达，爵禄并至而不穷，物之所利，乃非己也，吾命有在外者也。君子不为盗，贤人不为窃，吾若取之，何哉？故曰：鸟莫知于鷾鸸，目之所不宜处，不给视，虽落其实，弃之而走；其畏人也，而袭诸人间社稷存焉尔一作耳。何谓无始而非卒？仲尼曰：化其万物，而不知其禅之者，焉知其所终？焉知其所始？正而待之而已耳。何谓人与天一邪？仲尼曰：有人，天也。有天，亦天也。人之不能有天，性也。圣人晏然，体逝而终矣 — with the name variant registered (歌猋氏之风, annotated 一作焱 in the Wikisource text)