Wake Forest University
Patrick Edwin Moran
Traditional:
造化之運如磨，上面常轉而不止。萬物之生，似磨中撒出
，有粗有細，自是不齊，又曰：「天地之形，加人以兩碗
相合，貯水於內。以手常常掉開，則水在內不出；稍住手
，則水漏矣。」
過。
Simplified:
造化之运如磨，上面常转而不止。万物之生，似磨中撒出
，有粗有细，自是不齐，又曰：「天地之形，加人以两碗
相合，贮水於内。以手常常掉开，则水在内不出；稍住手
，则水漏矣。」
过。
big5:
yƤBpiAW`ӤCU͡AiX
AʦӡA۬OASGuѦaΡA[HHJ
ۦXAJCH``}AhbXFy
Ah|oCv
LC
GB:
컯֮ĥ泣תֹ֮ĥ
дϸDz룬Ի֮Σ
ϣˮڡֳˮڲס
ˮ©ӡ
Translation:
"The activity of production by transformation is like a grindstone wheel which rotates on and on without stopping. The production of the myriad creatures is like things being thrown off from the wheel, some things are coarse and some things are fine, and [the process] is naturally uneven." [Zhu Xi] also said: "The form of Heaven and Earth is like when a person joins two bowls together brim to brim, having stored water within. If the person continually uses his or her hand to manipulate it, then the water will remain inside; if the person stays his or her hand for a moment, then the water will leak out."
Commentary:
The first part of this record is an attempt to explain why there is inequality in the universe.
The second part does not seem to make sense. First, where I have used "manipulate", the text has a term that normally means "to open." It is hard to understand why opening a bottle would keep the water in, and capping the bottle would permit the water to leak out. Second, if there were nearly one bowlful of water involved, then most kinds of manipulation would make the water likely to spill because it would slosh over the rim of the bottom bowl.
Possibly Zhu Xi is trying to explain why, if Earth is a flat object covered over by the bowl of Heaven, the ocean does not leak out somewhere. Or, he may have in mind some idea that Earth is totally surrounded by Heaven. He needs to have some idea like that to fit his explanation of where the sun goes at night. But if Earth is totally surrounded by Heaven, then there would presumably be no gap through which the ocean could escape.
There is one physical operation that almost makes sense in this context. If two bowls or bottles are fitted together rim to rim, the only time that water would flow out would be if either the water were sloshed about, or if it were necessary to invert the apparatus. As water moved from what had been the bottom container to what had been the top container, it could leak out as it ran over the region where the rims joined. One way around this would be to move the whole apparatus in a circle so that centrifugal force would keep the water always in the same container regardless of what part of their orbit they were in.
There are, however, places where Zhu Xi demonstrates that he takes centrifugal force to be centripetal force, so he may simply think that by spinning the bowls the water they contain will be drawn to the center rather than to the rims of the bowls.
It appears fairly certain that Zhu Xi wants to explain why the water in the ocean does not leak away somewhere, and that he has some idea of using rotational motion to explain why the water can be held in.
-- PEM