We overlook the lashes that brush our lids—and, just so, we often overlook ourselves.
Within Reach, Beyond Sight
— Counsellor Du’s Parable and King Zhuang’s Withdrawn Spear
“The eye may spy a hundred paces, yet never its own fringe of lashes.”
— Han Feizi, a seminal legalist treatise of political philosophy that first set the idiom to script, composed in China’s late Warring States era.
The Scene in the Throne Hall
Late in the Spring-and-Autumn age, King Zhuang of Chu nursed a bold ambition: march east and subdue the troubled land of Yue. The court stood hushed; every minister bowed, none daring to gainsay their lord.
Du—then serving as one of Chu’s senior counsellors, a dàifù (大夫) whose duty was to assist the king with both dignity and broad vision —stepped forward. Face solemn, he asked, “Great King, why must we strike at Yue?”
Zhuang answered as if reciting a maxim: “Yue is racked by civil strife, its armies are thin. No hour could be riper.”
Du frowned but spoke evenly:
“Your servant may be slow-witted, yet he cannot set aside his unease.
The eye can pick out a distant bird, but not the lashes on its own lids.
Have we forgotten our lashes, my king?
Our troops have just bled to Qin and to Jin, ceding wide tracts of borderland—does that not betray our weakness?
Bandits roam the roads; the rebel Zhuang Qiao stirs trouble at the frontier; the magistrates are at a loss—does that not tell of a realm in disorder?
Weak troops and a restless state, yet we yearn for fresh campaigns: are we not staring at a far-off flaw and ignoring the danger before our eyes?”
His words cracked the silence like thunder. King Zhuang lowered his gaze, pondered long, then struck his staff: the drums of war fell silent; the army never marched.
The Lash We Fail to See
Near enough to touch, too near to notice
Why can none of us truly see a lash that brushes the eyeball? It sits inside the very ring we no longer inspect. Human error works the same: the faults that cling closest are the first we overlook.
Laozi taught, “To know others is clever; to know oneself is clear.” Spying a neighbour’s stumble is easy; staring down our own misstep is the rarer light. But for Du’s arresting image, Chu might have rushed headlong into ruin.
Thus lash and eyelid become a quiet allegory: we are hawk-eyed toward another’s blemish, near-sighted toward our own. Reading the world is simple; reading the fog in one’s heart is the long apprenticeship.
Three Quiet Reasons We Miss the Lash
- Retinal geography
Lashes fall outside the fovea, landing in the blurrier rim of peripheral vision; at best we sense a shadowy fringe. - Micro-range defocus
The human lens is tuned for arm’s-length and beyond; objects nearer than a centimetre drift out of sharpness. - Neural editing
To spare us constant static, the brain filters out every unmoving speck—lash, nose bridge, or spectacle rim—so attention can roam where danger truly lies.
The body’s design, then, invites a moral parallel: what clings nearest is what habit teaches us to ignore.
Humility as First Sight
In daily life the “eye-cannot-see-lash” lesson repeats itself: a leader faults subordinates yet misses the warp in his own decision; parents chastise children yet forget the gaps in their guidance; friends trade advice yet seldom turn the light inward. The wiser path begins not with judging the distant scene, but with daring to probe one’s private blind spot.
The proverb captured in Han Feizi is both a trick of optics and a parable of temperament. Before we pronounce on the world, we might lower our gaze and examine the shadow we carry; before we weigh another, first face the edge we have yet to hone. Only by slipping past the veil we ourselves have drawn can we take in the whole panorama—and let our sight stretch, at last, to the farthest horizon.
Authored by Dr. Yuman Shang
Sponsored by Ms. Mei Hua Hall