Hui Shi - The Ten Theses

The Ten Theses

"Under Heaven" lists Hui Shi's ten theses (sometimes referred to as the ten paradoxes):

Hui Shih was a man of many devices and his writings would fill five carriages. But his doctrines were jumbled and perverse and his words wide of the mark. His way of dealing with things may be seen from these sayings:

"The largest thing has nothing beyond it; it is called the One of largeness. The smallest thing has nothing within it; it is called the One of smallness."

"That which has no thickness cannot be piled up; yet it is a thousand li in dimension."

"Heaven is as low as earth; mountains and marshes are on the same level."

"The sun at noon is the sun setting. The thing born is the thing dying."

"Great similarities are different from little similarities; these are called the little similarities and differences. The ten thousand things are all similar and are all different; these are called the great similarities and differences."

"The southern region has no limit and yet has a limit."

"I set off for Yueh today and came there yesterday."

"Linked rings can be separated."

"I know the center of the world: it is north of Yen and south of Yueh."

"Let love embrace the ten thousand things; Heaven and earth are a single body."

With sayings such as these, Hui Shih tried to introduce a more magnanimous view of the world and to enlighten the rhetoricians.

— Zhuangzi, 33, tr. Burton Watson 1968:374