Introduction

The title comes from a saying of the Song scholar Wang Xinmin: 'One who can always chew vegetable roots can accomplish anything.' The Vegetable Roots Discourse consists of more than three hundred short sayings in finely balanced, elegant aphorisms, blending the Confucian mean, Daoist non-action and Buddhist detachment, on self-cultivation, conduct in the world, dealing with others, managing a household, and the advances and retreats, gains and losses of life. 'Unmoved by favour or disgrace, watch the flowers in the courtyard bloom and fall; indifferent to going or staying, follow the clouds in the sky as they gather and disperse', and 'Where the path is narrow, step aside to let another pass; where the flavour is rich, leave a share for others to taste', are among its famous lines. For centuries it has been a bedside book for those who wish to live wisely among others.