The Ladder of Nü Yu: Putting Outside, Dawn-Clearing, and the Stillness Made in Disturbance
Annotated translation of the Dazongshi passage where the woman teacher Nü Yu gives the tradition's first staged account of practice: three days, seven days, nine days — and the stillness that sends off and welcomes.
Chinese text
南伯子葵问乎女偊曰：「子之年长矣，而色若孺子，何也？」曰：「吾闻道矣。」南伯子葵曰：「道可得学邪？」曰：「恶！恶可！子非其人也。夫卜梁倚有圣人之才而无圣人之道，我有圣人之道而无圣人之才，吾欲以教之，庶几其果为圣人乎！不然，以圣人之道告圣人之才，亦易矣。吾犹守而告之，参日而后能外天下；已外天下矣，吾又守之，七日而后能外物；已外物矣，吾又守之，九日而后能外生；已外生矣，而后能朝彻；朝彻而后能见独；见独而后能无古今；无古今而后能入于不死不生。杀生者不死，生生者不生。其为物，无不将也，无不迎也，无不毁也，无不成也，其名为撄宁。撄宁也者，撄而后成者也。」
Literal rendering
Nanbo Zikui asked Nü Yu: “You are old in years, yet your complexion is that of a child — how is this?” She said: “I have heard the Way.” “Can the Way be learned?” “No! How could it? You are not the person for it. There was Buliang Yi — he had the talent of a sage but not the Way of a sage; I have the Way of a sage but not the talent. I wanted to teach him, in hopes that he might in the end become a sage. But even failing that, telling the Way of a sage to the talent of a sage is easy. I held, and told. After three days he could put the world outside. The world put outside, I held again — after seven days he could put things outside. Things put outside, I held again — after nine days he could put his own life outside. Life put outside, then came the dawn-clearing. Dawn-clearing, then the seeing of the alone. Seeing the alone, then no past and present. No past and present, then entering the neither dying nor born. What kills the living does not die; what generates life is not born. As a thing, it sends all off, welcomes all in, destroys all, completes all. Its name is yingning — stillness made in disturbance. Yingning means: disturbed, and only then complete.”
Term-by-term notes
- 色若孺子 — the complexion of a child. The dialogue opens on the visible sign: the teacher’s face. The tradition records the claim that the Way shows; the site records the claim without endorsing the physiology.
- 圣人之才 / 圣人之道 — talent and Way, split apart. The passage’s hinge: the two components do not come together in one person, and the teaching happens when the one who has the Way holds for the one who has the talent. The site’s teacher-question pages inherit the split: the passage is the tradition’s own argument for the necessity of transmission — and its modesty (the teacher is the holder, not the talent).
- 守而告之 — held, and told. The verb 守 is the tradition’s shouyi, the guarding: Nü Yu’s teaching is not instruction but maintenance — she holds the field while the talent moves. Every stage repeats it: 吾又守之, “I held again.” The ladder’s engine is the teacher’s stillness, not the student’s effort.
- 外 — to put outside. The ladder’s one verb: 外天下 (the world), 外物 (things), 外生 (one’s own life) — three days, seven days, nine days. The site’s day-count caveat applies: the numbers are the passage’s pedagogy, not a schedule. Note the order — the self is put outside last, and only then does the next stage arrive.
- 朝彻 — dawn-clearing. After the three exclusions, the sudden turn: the mind clears like dawn. The word is the tradition’s earliest name for the moment the subtraction pays.
- 见独 — the seeing of the alone. 独, the alone/unique: what is seen when the paired world has been put outside — the undivided, prior to the pairs. The two-forgetting page keeps the negative side; 见独 is the positive.
- 撄宁 — stillness made in disturbance. The closing definition is the passage’s summit, and the yingning glossary carries its full weight: 撄而后成 — disturbed, and only then complete. The stillness is not the absence of disturbance but the stillness the disturbance cannot enter — the diver’s abode at the level of the Dao itself.
Where this passage sits
This is the site’s earliest complete practice ladder — older than the Zuowang Lun’s seven stages by a millennium, and their direct ancestor. It sits at the head of the site’s stage pages: the subtraction chapter of the DDJ gives the verb, this passage gives the sequence, and every later manual — Taiping Jing, Baopuzi, Zuowang Lun — descends from it.
Sources
- Zhuangzi ch. 6 (Dazongshi, inner chapter): the Nü Yu dialogue. Verified against the Wikisource full text and two teaching editions with translations, which agree throughout; the passage's closing definition of yingning is also documented on the yingning glossary page