INTRODUCTION
Just because you’re a dummy doesn’t mean the dao has to be scary!
Although I highly recommend you read and reread to form your own experience, for you, dear reader, I will explain the dao through the lenses of du, de, and xu.
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DE FOR DUMMIES
The concept of "de" (德) is usually translated as “virtue.” I think this connotation distorts the meaning, so let’s think of de as an essential intuition. Don’t cling too hard to the definition—this is the whole point of de.
Zhuangzi illustrates this with the perfect man of ancients. But instead of a primitive caveman, let’s think of him as a big newborn baby:
古之人，其知有所至矣。恶乎至？有以为未始有物者，至矣，尽矣，不可以加矣！其次以为有物矣，而未始有封也。其次以为有封焉，而未始有是非也。是非之彰也，道之所以亏也。
“The knowledge of the ancients was perfect. How perfect? At first, they did not yet know that there were things. This is the most perfect knowledge; nothing can be added. Next, they knew that there were things, but did not yet make distinctions between them. Next, they made distinctions between them, but they did not yet pass judgments upon them. When judgments were passed, dao was destroyed.
Big babies don’t know anything. They take pure experience, “the that,” at face value—without confusing themselves with conceptions that make the experience seem rationally possible. The big baby does not know it, but in this state there is nothing but the One.
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且若亦知夫德之所荡而知之所为出乎哉？德荡乎名，知出乎争。名也者，相札也； 知也者争之器也。二者凶器，非所以尽行也。
“Besides, do you understand that the thing in which the de in us is dissipated is the very thing by which knowledge is brought forth?”
“De is spoiled by making a name, knowledge comes forth from competition. To ‘make a name’ is to clash with others, ‘knowledge’ is a tool in competition. Both of them are sinister tools, of no use in perfecting conduct.”
We see in the second half that identifying de as virtuous, getting recognized and praised for it, and/or consciously valuing and pursuing it spoils de.
I find the first more interesting. We see that an effort to form knowledge collapses the the “wave function” of the situation before us into a neat lie. Instead of acting on this limited understanding, we want to experience like a big baby and act in the “flow state” of xu.
I wu this on a park bench: “stop looking at the world through the viewfinder.”
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DU FOR DUMMIES
“Du" (度) is a degree/balance that we can align ourselves with (shi du) to achieve harmony or surpass and end up in a harmful extreme:
故法言曰 ：‘无迁令，无劝成。过度益也。’迁令劝成殆事。美成在久，恶成不及改，可不慎与！且夫乘物以游心，托不得已以养中，至矣。
“Thus the maxim says, ‘Do not compromise your mission, do not qiu cheng. Do not surpass du!’ . . . Satisfactory cheng is to be made with time. Bad cheng, once made, is too late to be changed. Can one afford to be careless? Let yourself by carried along by things so that the mind wanders freely. Let yourself accept what is necessary and inevitable to cultivate your spirit. This is the perfect way.
Qiu cheng is a prime offense of surpassing du. Qiu means urge/expect/desire, and cheng can mean “success” as in cheng gong or “completion” (desired results or not) as in cheng guo. I like all interpretations of this.
If you’re still confused, think of all things as a circle. As “good” things get “gooder” they wrap around and become “bad.” This why we can have “too much of a good thing” or even “too little bad.”
There’s also a du to wealth/power (starve < du < guillotine), ambition (NEET < du < bald), and many more. My grandma becomes a philosopher whenever she sees me eat ten eggs for breakfast. Do not surpass du!
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XU FOR DUMMIES
“Xu” (虚) is the emptiness that receives all things. This is the state of pure experience the big baby lives in:
.瞻彼阕者，虚室生白，吉祥止止。夫且不止， 是之谓坐驰。
“Consider the gaps and cracks in things: it is xu chambers that birth light, and all auspicious things roost only where there is stillness. Whenever you fail to find stillness, you’re ‘galloping around while sitting.’ . . .”
Luckily, we get a how-to tutorial from on how to achieve it. I’ve kindly attached a guided meditation for “fasting of the heart” at the bottom of Zhuangzi II:
仲尼曰 ：“若一志，无听之以耳而 听之以心；无听之以心而听之以气。听止于耳，心止于符。气 也者，虚而待物者也。唯道集虚。虚者，心斋也”
“Make your will as one (yi). Rather than listen with the ear, listen with the mind (xin). Rather than listen with the mind, listen with the qi. Listening stops at the ear, the heart with ideas. But the qi is an emptiness (xu) ready to receive all things. Dao abides in the emptiness; the emptiness is the fast of mind.”
We disregard all worldly matters, then all external things, and finally our own existence. Having felt the One, we become enlightened.