Ma Jifu(马吉甫): The Taoist Who Found Wisdom in a Snail
Paul Peng
Some philosophers find wisdom in the heavens. Some find it in the human heart. Ma Jifu found it in a snail and a cicada.
He is one of the most obscure figures in the history of Taoist thought. We do not know when he was born or when he died. We know only that he served during the reigns of Emperor Xianzong and Emperor Muzong, in the early ninth century CE. He left behind two short prose poems: the Ode to the Snail (《蜗牛赋》) and the Ode to the Cicada (《蝉赋》). Together, they form a matched pair in which two of the humblest creatures in the natural world become mirrors of the Taoist sage. Neither one is useful. Neither one is ambitious. Neither one needs to be anything other than what it is. And that, Ma Jifu argues, is the whole of wisdom.
The Snail and the Meaning of Uselessness
The snail is not an obvious choice for a philosophical poem. It is slow. It is slimy. It shrinks at a touch. In the hierarchy of Chinese literary imagery—dragons and phoenixes, cranes and tortoises, orchids and pines—the snail is barely worth mentioning. Ma Jifu chose it deliberately. He wanted the lowest, weakest, least magnificent creature he could find, because he wanted to make a point about what kind of being the Taoist sage actually is.
He begins with a direct statement of the Zhuangzian principle:
“Thus one knows that ‘uselessness’ is where usefulness lies. Seeking to live leads to losing life.”
The gnarled tree that cannot be cut for timber lives to a great age. The snail—too small to eat, too slow to catch, too unremarkable to notice—is the perfect embodiment of this principle. It is so useless that nothing bothers to harm it. Then Ma Jifu describes the snail’s way of being as a model for the sage:
“With a quiet mind and few desires, it does not rush forward in pursuit when advancing, nor is it preoccupied with eating and drinking when retreating. It absorbs the pure essence of the great Tao. It embodies the moderation of being content with enough. It does not follow external things without regret. It always abides in emptiness and preserves simplicity.”
Then the most remarkable line:
“Rising to clear rivers, it does not consider it honour. Settling in stagnant mire, it does not consider it disgrace.”
The snail does not distinguish between clean water and dirty water. It does not know honour and disgrace. It simply lives where it is. This is the state that Zhuangzi called “the equality of all things”—the transcendence of the categories that generate human suffering. Ma Jifu’s snail is not a metaphor. It is a teacher. It does not know it is a teacher, which is exactly why it is one.
The Cicada and the Art of Knowing One’s Place
Ma Jifu’s Ode to the Cicada describes a creature that knows exactly what it is and does not aspire to be anything else:
“In its aspiration, it does not yearn for the swan goose. In keeping to its duty, it does not go beyond the elm and sandalwood trees.”
The “swan goose” is the honghu (鸿鹄)—the great migratory bird that soars to the heavens. This contrast comes directly from the opening chapter of the Zhuangzi, the Xiaoyao You, where a cicada and a little dove laugh at a giant bird that flies ninety thousand li into the sky. Ma Jifu’s cicada is the same creature, but dignified. It does not laugh. It simply does not yearn. The swan goose can fly to the ends of the earth. The cicada stays on its branch. Neither one is better.
“It calmly rests its mind from all things, happily dwelling on the branch. Serene and self-contained, it remains thus through a thousand autumns.”
The cicada does not try to become something else. It sings its single note, on its single branch, for as long as its life allows. A thousand autumns pass, and the cicada’s way of being does not change.
The Symmetry of the Two Small Creatures
The snail lives in mud. The cicada lives on a branch. The snail is silent. The cicada sings. But both are perfectly content with what they are. Neither envies the other. Neither envies the swan goose or the dragon or the emperor in his palace. Ma Jifu’s philosophy, if it can be called a philosophy, is this: the Tao is not found in great achievements or profound insights. It is found in being exactly what you are, without reaching for more, without shrinking from less. The snail knows this. The cicada knows this. Most humans do not.
Why This Matters for the Living Tradition
From a Zhengyi perspective, Ma Jifu’s snail and cicada are not just literary images. They are spiritual instructions. The Zhengyi tradition has always included an emphasis on humility—on the priest who serves without seeking recognition, on the ritual that is performed without requiring an audience, on the inner work that is done in silence. The snail that “always abides in emptiness and preserves simplicity” is a model of the Taoist practitioner. The cicada that “calmly rests its mind from all things” is a model of the meditator. Ma Jifu’s obscurity—the fact that we know almost nothing about him—is itself a kind of Taoist statement. He wrote two poems about insignificant creatures, and then he disappeared. He was, in his own way, as perfect a snail as the one he described.
What the Snail and the Cicada Left Behind
Ma Jifu’s two poems are preserved in volume 6 of the Complete Prose of the Tang. They are short. They are unassuming. They have been read by almost no one. But if you stop and read them slowly, they do something that more famous works of Taoist philosophy sometimes fail to do: they make the abstract concrete. The Zhuangzi says that the sage is useless and therefore survives. Ma Jifu shows you the snail. The Laozi says that contentment with what you have is the highest wealth. Ma Jifu shows you the cicada. The snail does not know it is a philosopher. The cicada does not know it is a sage. And Ma Jifu, whoever he was, did not think of himself as anything more than a man who had noticed what the snail and the cicada were doing and had written it down.
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