Zhuangzi · 人間世第四
Read the witness. Inspect a construction. Follow the evidence.
Original source spelling · punctuation belongs to the digital witness · pronunciation tools follow your language focus.
A route through this passage
61 Han characters · 45 distinct forms · 9 units separated by the witness’s punctuation
- Establish the frame. Read the surrounding chapter. Who speaks, what is being discussed, and which earlier words supply the context?
- Test one unit.
自事其心者，
Mark a possible predicate and its participants. Record what you have supplied rather than found explicitly in the text. - Reconstruct the argument. Connect the units in your own words. Where does a description, question, contrast, or consequence depend on your interpretation?
Investigate 8 written forms in this passage
Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.
哀樂不易施乎前，Keep different negatives apart ↗知其不可柰何而安之若命，Locate the unknown ↗知其不可柰何而安之若命，Read the relationship between clauses ↗知其不可柰何而安之若命，Locate the unknown ↗Watch recurrence: 其 × 4 不 × 3 而 × 3 之 × 3 事 × 2 者 × 2. Repetition of a graph need not mean repetition of a sense.
Computed from this exact witness · Contextual interpretation awaits editorial review. The guide is a set of reading prompts, not a translation. Sources & methods
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Use the reading guide above, build your interpretation, then test what you can recover. Your notes and schedule stay on this device.
1 · Explain it in your own words
2 · Recover the wording
Select a source unit, then hide the passage and reconstruct it. This checks textual recall, not understanding.
3 · Explain, then revisit
Without the source in front of you, explain the passage’s main point and one choice you made in reading it. Then reopen the text and check the evidence.
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Shared wording
Computed exact phrases in the pinned witnesses. These links do not assign a sense or assert borrowing.
韓非子 · 外儲說左下第三十三不可柰何？」跀危曰：「吾斷足也，固吾罪當之，不可柰何。
孟子 · 盡心下德之至也動容周旋中禮者，盛德之至也。哭死而哀，非為生者也。經德不回，非以干祿也。言語必信，非以正行也。君子行法，以俟命
論語 · 憲問篇第十四知其不可奚自？」子路曰：「自孔氏。」曰：「是知其不可而為之者與？」
Follow a connection
Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.
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Edition, source, and reuse
- Work
- 莊子 · Zhuangzi
- Attribution
- Traditionally associated with Zhuang Zhou; the received collection includes multiple voices and layers.
- Digital witness
- Kanseki Repository · KR5c0126 · base edition CHANT
- Contributors
- Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
- Source position
- KR5c0126_004.txt, lines 389–399. ZHUANG 4.2.6; Guo Qingfan 155; Wang Shumin 138; Fang Yong 123; Chen Guying 123
- Version
abb9cd323dfd9520894b56b3b8ba2ec0ea50554f- Reuse
- CC BY-SA 4.0. Text extraction and teaching additions share this licence.
- Text policy
- Source spelling and punctuation retained. Encoding headers, page markers, paragraph markers, whitespace, and leading section numbers are removed from the reading view. No silent script conversion or textual correction.
- Teaching
- zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes. English renderings are excerpt-level reading aids, not a full published translation. Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed.
Source-file SHA-256: 14fbc8989be973a146db7e9cd417498b95979a31e6ddab1fa37af97e38207fd8. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.