| The Great and Most...: |
Death and life are ordained, just as we have the constant succession of night and day - in both cases from Heaven. Men have no power to do anything in reference to them - such is the constitution of things. There are those who specially regard Heaven as their father, and they still love It (distant as It is); how much more should they love That which stands out (Superior and Alone)! Some specially regard their ruler as superior to themselves, and will give their bodies to die for him; how much more should they do so for That which is their true (Ruler)! When the springs are dried up, the fishes collect together on the land. Than that they should moisten one another there by the damp about them, and keep one another wet by their slime, it would be better for them to forget one another in the rivers and lakes. And when men praise Yao and condemn Jie, it would be better to forget them both, and seek the renovation of the Dao.
There is the great Mass (of nature) - I find the support of my body on it; my life is spent in toil on it; my old age seeks ease on it; at death I find rest in it - what makes my life a good makes my death also a good. If you hide away a boat in the ravine of a hill, and hide away the hill in a lake, you will say that (the boat) is secure; but at midnight there shall come a strong man and carry it off on his back, while you in the dark know nothing about it. You may hide away anything, whether small or great, in the most suitable place, and yet it shall disappear from it. But if you could hide the world in the world, so that there was nowhere to which it could be removed, this would be the grand reality of the ever-during Thing. When the body of man comes from its special mould, there is even then occasion for joy; but this body undergoes a myriad transformations, and does not immediately reach its perfection; does it not thus afford occasion for joys incalculable? Therefore the sagely man enjoys himself in that from which there is no possibility of separation, and by which all things are preserved. He considers early death or old age, his beginning and his ending, all to be good, and in this other men imitate him; how much more will they do so in regard to That Itself on which all things depend, and from which every transformation arises! |
