is the very axis of TAO. And when that axis passes through the centre at which all Infinities converge, positive and negative alike blend into an infinite ONE. Hence it has been said that there is nothing like the light of nature.
Probably an allusion to Lao Tzŭ's "Use the light that is within you to revert to your natural clearness of sight." We should then be able to view things in their true light. See _Tao-Tê-Ching_, ch. lii., and "To take a finger in illustration of a finger not being a finger is not so good as to take something which is not a finger. To take a horse in illustration of a horse not being a horse is not so good as to take something which is not a horse.
"So with the universe and all that in it is. These things are but fingers and horses in this sense. The possible is possible: the impossible is impossible. TAO operates, and given results follow.
Things receive names and are what they are. They achieve this by their natural affinity for what they are and their natural antagonism to what they are not. For all things have their own particular constitutions and potentialities. Nothing can exist without these.
These last few sentences are repeated in ch. xxvii. _ad init._ "We can never know anything but phenomena. Things are what they are, and their consequences will be what they will be."--_J. S. Mill._ "Therefore it is that, viewed from the standpoint of TAO, a beam and a pillar are identical.
The horizontal with the vertical.
So are ugliness and beauty, greatness, wickedness, perverseness, and strangeness. Separation is the same as construction: construction is the same as destruction. Nothing is subject either to construction or to destruction, for these conditions are brought together into ONE.
"Only the truly intelligent understand this principle of the identity of all things. They do not view things as apprehended by themselves, subjectively; but transfer themselves into the position of the things viewed.
Avoiding the fallacious channels of the senses.
And viewing them thus they are able to comprehend them, nay, to master them;--and he who can master them is near. So it is that to place oneself in subjective relation with externals, without consciousness of their objectivity,--this is TAO. But to wear out one's intellect in an obstinate adherence to the individuality of things, not recognising the fact that all things are ONE,--this is called _Three in the Morning_."
"What is _Three in the Morning_?" asked Tzŭ Yu.
"A keeper of monkeys," replied Tzŭ Ch'i, "said with regard to their rations of chestnuts that each monkey was to have three in the morning and four at night. But at this the monkeys were very angry, so the keeper said they might have four in the morning and three at night, with which arrangement they were all well pleased. The actual number of the chestnuts remained the same, but there was an adaptation to the likes and dislikes of those concerned. Such is the principle of putting oneself into subjective relation with externals.
"Wherefore the true Sage, while regarding contraries as identical, adapts himself to the laws of Heaven. This is called following two courses at once.
He is thus prevented from trying to walk through walls, etc., as later Taoists have professed themselves able to do, of course with a view to gull the public and enrich themselves. "GOD," says Locke, "when he makes the prophet, does not unmake the man."
So Carlyle in his essay on Novalis:--"To a Transcendentalist, matter has an existence but only as a Phenomenon...It is a mere relation, or rather the result of a relation between our living souls and the great First Cause."
"The knowledge of the men of old had a limit. It extended back to a period when matter did not exist. That was the extreme point to which their knowledge reached.
"The second period was that of matter, but of matter unconditioned.
By time or space. "Being, in itself," says Herbert Spencer, "out of relation, is itself unthinkable." _Principles of Psychology_, iii. p.
258.
"The third epoch saw matter conditioned, but contraries were still unknown. When these appeared, TAO began to decline. And with the decline of TAO, individual bias arose.
"Have then these states of falling and rising real existences? Surely they are but as the falling and rising of Chao Wên's music,--the consequences of his playing.
Chao Wên played the guitar. Shih K'uang wielded the _bâton_.
To keep time.
Hui Tzŭ argued. Herein these three men excelled, and in the practice of such arts they passed their lives.
"Hui Tzŭ's particular views being very different from those of the world in general, he was correspondingly anxious to enlighten people.
But he did not enlighten them as he should have done, By the cultivation and passive manifestation of his own inward light.
and consequently ended in the obscurity of the 'hard and white.'
Hui Tzŭ regarded such abstractions as hardness and whiteness as separate existences, of which the mind could only be conscious separately, one at a time.
Subsequently, his son searched his works for some clue, but never succeeded in establishing the principle. And indeed if such were possible to be established, then even I am established; but if not, then neither I nor anything in the universe is established!
"Therefore what the true Sage aims at is the light which comes out of darkness. He does not view things as apprehended by himself, subjectively, but transfers himself into the position of the things viewed. This is called using the light.
"There remains, however, Speech. Is that to be enrolled under either category of contraries, or not? Whether it is so enrolled or not, it will in any case belong to one or the other, and thus be as though it had an objective existence. At any rate, I should like to hear some speech which belongs to neither category.
Contraries being disposed of, there remains the vehicle _Speech_, _i.e._ the actual terms in which it is stated that contraries have ceased to be.
"If there was a beginning, then there was a time before that beginning.
And a time before the time which was before the time of that beginning.
"If there is existence, there must have been non-existence. And if there was a time when nothing existed, then there must have been a time before that--when even nothing did not exist. Suddenly, when nothing came into existence, could one really say whether it belonged to the category of existence or of non-existence? Even the very words I have just now uttered,--I cannot say whether they have really been uttered or not.
_I.e._ The words in the text, denying the existence of contraries.
"There is nothing under the canopy of heaven greater than the tip of an autumn spikelet. A vast mountain is a small thing. Neither is there any age greater than that of a child cut off in infancy. P'êng Tsu himself died young. The universe and I came into being together; and I, and everything therein, are ONE.
"If then all things are ONE, what room is there for Speech? On the other hand, since I can utter these words, how can Speech not exist?
"If it does exist, we have ONE and Speech = two; and two and one = three. From which point onwards even the best mathematicians will fail to reach: TAO.
how much more then will ordinary people fail?
"Hence, if from nothing you can proceed to something, and subsequently reach three, it follows that it would be still more easy if you were to start from something. To avoid such progression, you must put yourself into subjective relation with the external.
"Before conditions existed, TAO was. Before definitions existed, Speech was. Subjectively, we are conscious of certain delimitations which are,-- Right and Left Relationship and Obligation Division and Discrimination Emulation and Contention These are called the _Eight Predicables_.
Not, of course, in the strict logical sense.
For the true Sage, beyond the limits of an external world, they exist, but are not recognised. By the true Sage, within the limits of an external world, they are recognised, but are not assigned. And so, with regard to the wisdom of the ancients, as embodied in the canon of Confucius' history of his native State. Now one of the canonical books of China.
the true Sage assigns, but does not justify by argument. And thus, classifying he does not classify; arguing, he does not argue."
"How can that be?" asked Tzŭ Yu.
"The true Sage," answered Tzŭ Ch'i, "keeps his knowledge within him, while men in general set forth theirs in argument, in order to convince each other. And therefore it is said that in argument he does not manifest himself.
Others try to establish their own subjective view. The true Sage remains passive, aiming only at the annihilation of contraries.
"Perfect TAO does not declare itself. Nor does perfect argument express itself in words. Nor does perfect charity show itself in act. Nor is perfect honesty absolutely incorruptible. Nor is perfect courage absolutely unyielding.
"For the TAO which shines forth is not TAO. Speech which argues falls short of its aim. Charity which has fixed points loses its scope.
Honesty which is absolute is wanting in credit. Courage which is absolute misses its object. These five are, as it were, round, with a strong bias towards squareness. Therefore that knowledge which stops at what it does not know, is the highest knowledge.
"Who knows the argument which can be argued without words?--the TAO which does not declare itself as TAO? He who knows this may be said to be of GOD. To be able to pour in without making full, and pour out without making empty, in ignorance of the power by which such results are accomplished,--this is accounted _Light_."
Of old, the Emperor Yao said to Shun, "I would smite the Tsungs, and the Kueis, and the Hsü-aos. Ever since I have been on the throne I have had this desire. What do you think?"
"These three States," replied Shun, "are paltry out-of-the-way places.
Why can you not shake off this desire? Once upon a time, ten suns came out together, and all things were illuminated thereby. How much more then should virtue excel suns?"
Illustrating the use of "light." Instead of active force, substitute the passive but irresistible influence of virtue complete. The sun caused the traveller to lay aside his cloak when the north wind succeeded only in making him draw it tighter around him.
Yeh Ch'üeh asked Wang I, A disciple and tutor of remote antiquity. Said to have been two of the four Sages on the Miao-ku-shê mountain mentioned in ch. i.
saying, "Do you know for certain that all things are subjectively the same?"
"How can I know?" answered Wang I. "Do you know what you do not know?"
"How can I know?" replied Yeh Ch'üeh. "But can then nothing be known?"
"How can I know?" said Wang I. "Nevertheless, I will try to tell you.
How can it be known that what I call knowing is not really not knowing, and that what I call not knowing is not really knowing? Now I would ask you this. If a man sleeps in a damp place, he gets lumbago and dies. But how about an eel? And living up in a tree is precarious and trying to the nerves;--but how about monkeys? Of the man, the eel, and the monkey, whose habitat is the right one, absolutely? Human beings feed on flesh, deer on grass, centipedes on snakes, owls and crows on mice. Of these four, whose is the right taste, absolutely? Monkey mates with monkey, the buck with the doe; eels consort with fishes, while men admire Mao Ch'iang and Li Chi, Beauties of the fifth and seventh centuries B.C., respectively. The commentators do not seem to have noted the very obvious anachronism here involved.
at the sight of whom fishes plunge deep down in the water, birds soar high in the air, and deer hurry away.
For shame at their own inferiority.
Yet who shall say which is the correct standard of beauty? In my opinion, the standard of human virtue, and of positive and negative, is so obscured that it is impossible to actually know it as such."
"If you then," asked Yeh Ch'üeh, "do not know what is bad for you, is the Perfect Man equally without this knowledge?"
"The Perfect Man," answered Wang I, "is a spiritual being. Were the ocean itself scorched up, he would not feel hot. Were the Milky Way frozen hard, he would not feel cold. Were the mountains to be riven with thunder, and the great deep to be thrown up by storm, he would not tremble. In such case, he would mount upon the clouds of heaven, and driving the sun and the moon before him, would pass beyond the limits of this external world, where death and life have no more victory over man;--how much less what is bad for him?"
* * * * * Chü Ch'iao addressed Chang Wu Tzŭ A disciple and tutor of antiquity.
as follows:--"I heard Confucius say, 'The true sage pays no heed to mundane affairs. He neither seeks gain nor avoids injury. He asks nothing at the hands of man. He adheres, without questioning, to TAO.
Without speaking, he can speak; and he can speak and yet say nothing.
And so he roams beyond the limits of this dusty world. These,' added Confucius, 'are wild words.'
Han Fei Tzŭ tells us that Lao Tzŭ, whose doctrines Confucius seems to be here deriding, said exactly the opposite of this; viz: "The true Sage is beforehand in his attention to mundane affairs," _i.e._ "takes time by the forelock." Neither utterance, however, appears in the Now to me they are the skilful embodiment of TAO. What, Sir, is your opinion?"
"Points upon which the Yellow Emperor doubted," replied Chang Wu Tzŭ, "how should Confucius know?
Lao Tzŭ and the Yellow Emperor have always been mixed up in the heads of Taoist writers, albeit separated by a chasm of some two thousand years. Confucius is here evidently dealing with the actual doctrines of Lao Tzŭ.
You are going too fast. You see your egg, and expect to hear it crow.
You look at your cross-bow, and expect to have broiled duck before you.
I will say a few words to you at random, and do you listen at random.
"How does the Sage seat himself by the sun and moon, and hold the universe in his grasp? He blends everything into one harmonious whole, rejecting the confusion of this and that. Rank and precedence, which the vulgar prize, the Sage stolidly ignores. The revolutions of ten thousand years leave his Unity unscathed. The universe itself may pass away, but he will flourish still.
"How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know but that he who dreads to die is not as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his home?
"The lady Li Chi was the daughter of Ai Fêng.
A border chieftain.
When the Duke of Chin first got her, she wept until the bosom of her dress was drenched with tears. But when she came to the royal residence, and lived with the Duke, and ate rich food, she repented of having wept. How then do I know but that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?
"Those who dream of the banquet, wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams,--I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. Tomorrow a sage may arise to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten thousand generations have gone by.
"Granting that you and I argue. If you beat me, and not I you, are you necessarily right and I wrong? Or if I beat you and not you me, am I necessarily right and you wrong? Or are we both partly right and partly wrong? Or are we both wholly right and wholly wrong? You and I cannot know this, and consequently the world will be in ignorance of the truth.
"Who shall I employ as arbiter between us? If I employ some one who takes your view, he will side with you. How can such a one arbitrate between us? If I employ some one who takes my view, he will side with me. How can such a one arbitrate between us? And if I employ some one who either differs from, or agrees with, both of us, he will be equally unable to decide between us. Since then you, and I, and man, cannot decide, must we not depend upon Another?
Upon God, in whose infinity all contraries blend indistinguishably into ONE.
Such dependence is as though it were not dependence. We are embraced in the obliterating unity of God. There is perfect adaptation to whatever may eventuate; and so we complete our allotted span.
"But what is it to be embraced in the obliterating unity of God? It is this. With reference to positive and negative, to that which is so and that which is not so,--if the positive is really positive, it must necessarily be different from its negative: there is no room for argument. And if that which is so really is so, it must necessarily be different from that which is not so: there is no room for argument.
"Take no heed of time, nor of right and wrong. But passing into the realm of the Infinite, take your final rest therein."
Our refuge is in God alone, the Infinite Absolute. Contraries cannot but exist, but they should exist independently of each other without antagonism. Such a condition is found only in the all-embracing unity of God, wherein all distinctions of positive and negative, of right and wrong, of this and of that, are obliterated and merged in ONE.
Herbert Spencer says, "The antithesis of subject and object, never to be transcended while consciousness lasts, renders impossible all knowledge of the Ultimate Reality in which subject and object are The Penumbra said to the Umbra, "At one moment you move: at another you are at rest. At one moment you sit down: at another you get up.
Why this instability of purpose?" "I depend," replied the Umbra, "upon something which causes me to do as I do; and that something depends in turn upon something else which causes it to do as it does. My dependence is like that of a snake's scales or of a cicada's wings.
Which do not move of their own accord.
How can I tell why I do one thing, or why I do not do another?"
Showing how two or more may be the phenomena of one.
Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzŭ, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier.
The transition is called _Metempsychosis_.
Showing how one may appear to be either of two.
CHAPTER III.
NOURISHMENT OF THE SOUL.
My life has a limit, but my knowledge is without limit. To drive the limited in search of the limitless, is fatal; and the knowledge of those who do this is fatally lost.
In striving for others, avoid fame. In striving for self, avoid disgrace. Pursue a middle course. Thus you will keep a sound body, and a sound mind, fulfil your duties, and work out your allotted span.
Prince Hui's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand, every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of his knee, every _whshh_ of rent flesh, every _chhk_ of the chopper, was in perfect harmony,--rhythmical like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, simultaneous like the chords of the Ching Shou.
Commentators are divided in their identifications of these ancient _morceaux_.
"Well done!" cried the Prince. "Yours is skill indeed."
"Sire," replied the cook; "I have always devoted myself to TAO. It is better than skill. When I first began to cut up bullocks, I saw before me simply _whole_ bullocks. After three years' practice, I saw no more whole animals.
Meaning that he saw them, so to speak, in sections.
And now I work with my mind and not with my eye. When my senses bid me stop, but my mind urges me on, I fall back upon eternal principles.
I follow such openings or cavities as there may be, according to the natural constitution of the animal. I do not attempt to cut through joints: still less through large bones.
For a curious parallelism, see Plato's _Phædrus_, 265.
"A good cook changes his chopper once a year,--because he cuts. An ordinary cook, once a month,--because he hacks. But I have had this chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such an interstice.
These words help to elucidate a much-vexed passage in ch. xliii of the By these means the interstice will be enlarged, and the blade will find plenty of room. It is thus that I have kept my chopper for nineteen years as though fresh from the whetstone.
"Nevertheless, when I come upon a hard part where the blade meets with a difficulty, I am all caution. I fix my eye on it. I stay my hand, and gently apply my blade, until with a _hwah_ the part yields like earth crumbling to the ground. Then I take out my chopper, and stand up, and look around, and pause, until with an air of triumph I wipe my chopper and put it carefully away."
"Bravo!" cried the Prince. "From the words of this cook I have learnt how to take care of my life."
Meaning that which informs life, _sc._ the soul.
When Hsien, of the Kung-wên family, beheld a certain official, he was horrified, and said, "Who is that man? How came he to lose a foot? Is this the work of God, or of man?
"Why, of course," continued Hsien, "it is the work of God, and not of man. When God brought this man into the world, he wanted him to be unlike other men. Men always have two feet. From this it is clear that God and not man made him as he is.
It was by God's will that he took office with a view to personal aggrandisement. That he got into trouble and suffered the common punishment of loss of feet, cannot therefore be charged to man.
"Now, wild fowl get a peck once in ten steps, a drink once in a hundred. Yet they do not want to be fed in a cage. For although they would thus be able to command food, they would not be free."
And had our friend above kept out of the official cage he would still have been independent as the fowls of the air.
When Lao Tzŭ died, Ch'in Shih went to mourn. He uttered three yells and departed.
A disciple asked him saying, "Were you not our Master's friend?"
"I was," replied Ch'in Shih.
"And if so, do you consider that a sufficient expression of grief at his loss?" added the disciple.
"I do," said Ch'in Shih. "I had believed him to be the man of all men, but now I know that he was not. When I went in to mourn, I found old persons weeping as if for their children, young ones wailing as if for their mothers. And for him to have gained the attachment of those people in this way, he too must have uttered words which should not have been spoken, and dropped tears which should not have been shed, thus violating eternal principles, increasing the sum of human emotion, and forgetting the source from which his own life was received. The ancients called such emotions the trammels of mortality. The Master came, because it was his time to be born; he went, because it was his time to die. For those who accept the phenomenon of birth and death in this sense, lamentation and sorrow have no place. The ancients spoke of death as of God cutting down a man suspended in the air. The fuel is consumed, but the fire may be transmitted, and we know not that it comes to an end."
The soul, according to Chuang Tzŭ, if duly nourished and not allowed to wear itself out with the body in the pursuits of mortality, may become immortal and return beatified to the Great Unknown whence it came.
CHAPTER IV.
MAN AMONG MEN.
_Argument_:--Man must fall in with his mortal environment--His virtue should be passive, not active--He should be rather than do--Talents a hindrance--But of petty uselessness great usefulness is achieved.
Yen Hui went to take leave of Confucius.
A disciple of the Sage. Also known as Tzŭ Yüan.
"Whither are you bound?" asked the Master.
"I am going to the State of Wei," was the reply.
"And what do you propose to do there?" continued Confucius.
"I hear," answered Yen Hui, "that the Prince of Wei is of mature age, but of an unmanageable disposition. He behaves as if the State were of no account, and will not see his own faults. Consequently, the people perish; and their corpses lie about like so much undergrowth in a marsh. They are at extremities. And I have heard you, Sir, say that if a State is well governed it may be neglected; but that if it is badly governed, then we should visit it.
In the _Lun Yü_, Confucius says exactly the opposite of this.
The science of medicine embraces many various diseases. I would test my knowledge in this sense, that perchance I may do some good to that State."
"Alas!" cried Confucius, "you will only succeed in bringing evil upon yourself. For TAO must not be distributed. If it is, it will lose its unity. If it loses its unity, it will be uncertain; and so cause mental disturbance,--from which there is no escape.
"The sages of old first got TAO for themselves, and then got it for others. Before you possess this yourself, what leisure have you to attend to the doings of wicked men? Besides, do you know what Virtue results in and where Wisdom ends? Virtue results in a desire for fame; Wisdom ends in contentions. In the struggle for fame men crush each other, while their wisdom but provokes rivalry. Both are baleful instruments, and may not be incautiously used.
"Besides, those who, before influencing by their own solid virtue and unimpeachable sincerity, and before reaching the heart by the example of their own disregard for name and fame, go and preach charity and duty to one's neighbour to wicked men,--only make these men hate them for their very goodness' sake. Such persons are called _evil speakers_.
And those who speak evil of others are apt to be evil spoken of themselves. That, alas! will be your end.
"On the other hand, if the Prince loves the good and hates the bad, what object will you have in inviting him to change his ways? Before you have opened your mouth to preach, the Prince himself will have seized the opportunity to wrest the victory from you. Your eye will fall, your expression fade, your words will stick, your face will change, and your heart will die within you. It will be as though you took fire to quell fire, water to quell water, which is popularly known as 'pouring oil on the flames.' And if you begin with concessions, there will be no end to them. Neglect this sound advice, and you will be the victim of that violent man.
"Of old, Chieh murdered Kuan Lung Fêng, and Chou slew Prince Pi Kan.
Their victims were both men who cultivated virtue themselves in order to secure the welfare of the people. But in doing this they offended their superiors; and therefore, because of that very moral culture, their superiors got rid of them, in order to guard their own reputations.
Chieh and Chou are the two typical tyrants of Chinese history.
"Of old, Yao attacked the Ts'ung-chih and Hsü-ao countries, and Yü attacked the Yu-hu country. Homes were desolated and families destroyed by the slaughter of the inhabitants. Yet they fought without ceasing, and strove for victory to the last. These are instances known to all.
Now if the Sages of old failed in their efforts against this love of fame, this desire for victory,--are you likely to succeed? But of course you have a scheme. Tell it to me."
"Gravity of demeanour," replied Yen Hui, "and dispassionateness; energy and singleness of purpose,--will this do?"
"Alas!" said Confucius, "that will not do. If you make a show of being perfect and obtrude yourself, the Prince's mood will be doubtful.
Ordinarily, he is not opposed, and so he has come to take actual pleasure in trampling upon the feelings of others. And if he has thus failed in the practice of routine virtues, do you expect that he will take readily to higher ones? You may insist, but without result.
Outwardly you will be right, but inwardly wrong. How then will you make him mend his ways?"
"Just so," replied Yen Hui. "I am inwardly straight, and outwardly crooked, completed after the models of antiquity.
"He who is inwardly straight is a servant of God. And he who is a servant of God knows that the Son of Heaven The Emperor.
and himself are equally the children of God. Shall then such a one trouble whether man visits him with evil or with good? Man indeed regards him as a child; and this is to be a servant of God.
(1) Children are everywhere exempt.--This is the first limb of a threefold argument.
"He who is outwardly crooked is a servant of man. He bows, he kneels, he folds his hands;--such is the ceremonial of a minister. What all men do, shall I dare not to do? What all men do, none will blame me for doing. This is to be a servant of man.
(2) The individual is not punished for the faults of the community.
"He who is completed after the models of antiquity is a servant of the Sages of old. Although I utter the words of warning and take him to task, it is the Sages of old who speak, and not I. Thus my uprightness will not bring me into trouble, the servant of the Sages of old.--Will this do?"
(3) The responsibility rests, not with the mouthpiece, but with the authors of the doctrines enunciated.
"Alas!" replied Confucius, "No. Your plans are too many, and are lacking in prudence. However, your firmness will secure you from harm; but that is all. You will not influence him to such an extent that he shall seem to follow the dictates of his own heart."
"Then," said Yen Hui, "I am without resource, and venture to ask for a method."
Confucius said, "_FAST_...Let me explain. You have a method, but it is difficult to practise. Those which are easy are not from God."
"Well," replied Yen Hui, "my family is poor, and for many months we have tasted neither wine nor flesh. Is not that fasting?"
"The fasting of religious observance it is," answered Confucius, "but not the fasting of the heart."
"And may I ask," said Yen Hui, "in what consists the fasting of the heart?"
"Cultivate unity," replied Confucius.
Make of the mind as it were an undivided indivisible ONE.
"You hear not with the ears, but with the mind; not with the mind, but with your soul.
The vital fluid which informs your whole being; in fact, "with your whole self."
But let hearing stop with the ears. Let the working of the mind stop with itself. Then the soul will be a negative existence, passively responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only TAO can abide. And that negative state is the fasting of the heart."
"Then," said Yen Hui, "the reason I could not get the use of this method is my own individuality. If I could get the use of it, my individuality would have gone. Is this what you mean by the negative state?"
"Exactly so," replied the Master. "Let me tell you. If you can enter this man's domain without offending his _amour propre_, cheerful if he hears you, passive if he does not; without science, without drugs, simply living there in a state of complete indifference,--you will be near success. It is easy to stop walking: the trouble is to walk without touching the ground. As an agent of man, it is easy to deceive; but not as an agent of God. You have heard of winged creatures flying.
You have never heard of flying without wings. You have heard of men being wise with wisdom. You have never heard of men wise without wisdom.
Wise of God, without the wisdom of man.
"Look at that window. Through it an empty room becomes bright with scenery; but the landscape stops outside. Were this not so, we should have an exemplification of sitting still and running away at one and the same time.
An empty room would contain something,--a paradox like that in the text.
"In this sense, you may use your ears and eyes to communicate within, but shut out all wisdom from the mind.
Let the channels of your senses be to your mind what a window is to an empty room.
And there where the supernatural Something which is and yet is not, like the landscape seen in, and yet not in, a room.
can find shelter, shall not man find shelter too? This is the method for regenerating all creation.
By passive, not by active, virtue.
It was the instrument which Yü and Shun employed. It was the secret of the success of Fu Hsi and Chi Chü. Shall it not then be adopted by mankind in general?"
Who stand much more in need of regeneration than such worthies as were these ancient Emperors.
Tzŭ Kao, Duke of Shê, A district of the Ch'u State.
being about to go on a mission to the Ch'i State, asked Confucius, saying, "The mission my sovereign is sending me on is a most important one. Of course, I shall be received with all due respect, but they will not take the same interest in the matter that I shall. And as an ordinary person cannot be pushed, still less a Prince, I am in a state of great alarm.
"Now you, Sir, have told me that in all undertakings great and small, TAO alone leads to a happy issue. Otherwise that, failing success, there is to be feared punishment from without, and with success, punishment from within; while exemption in case either of success or non-success falls only to the share of those who possess the virtue required.
_I.e._ those to whom the issue, as regards their own reward or punishment, is a matter of the completest indifference.
The term _virtue_, here as elsewhere unless specially notified, should be understood in the sense of exemplification of TAO.
"Well, I am not dainty with my food; neither am I always wanting to cool myself when hot. However, this morning I received my orders, and this evening I have been drinking iced water. I am so hot inside.
Before I have put my hand to the business I am suffering punishment from within; and if I do not succeed I am sure to suffer punishment from without. Thus I get both punishments, which is really more than I can bear. Kindly tell me what there is to be done."
"There exist two sources of safety," Confucius replied. "One is _Destiny_: the other is _Duty_. A child's love for its parents is destiny. It is inseparable from the child's life. A subject's