Sacred Texts Taoism Index Previous Next
1. There is a limit to our life, but to knowledge there is no limit. With what is limited to pursue after what is unlimited is a perilous thing; and when, knowing this, we still seek the increase of our knowledge, the peril cannot be averted 2. There should not be the practice of what is good with any thought of the fame (which it will bring), nor of what is evil with any approximation to the punishment (which it will incur) 3:--an accordance with the Central Element (of our nature) 4 is the regular way to preserve the body, to maintain the life, to nourish our parents, and to complete our term of years.
2. His cook 5 was cutting up an ox for the ruler Wän-hui 5. Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed
the pressure of his knee, in the audible ripping off of the skin, and slicing operation of the knife, the sounds were all in regular cadence. Movements and sounds proceeded as in the dance of 'the Mulberry Forest 1' and the blended notes of 'the King Shâu 1.' The ruler said, 'Ah! Admirable! That your art should have become so perfect!' (Having finished his operation), the cook laid down his knife, and replied to the remark, 'What your servant loves is the method of the Tâo, something in advance of any art. When I first began to cut up an ox, I saw nothing but the (entire) carcase. After three years I ceased to see it as a whole. Now I deal with it in a spirit-like manner, and do not look at it with my eyes. The use of my senses is discarded, and my spirit acts as it wills. Observing the natural lines, (my knife) slips through the great crevices and slides through the great cavities, taking advantage of the facilities thus presented. My art avoids the membranous ligatures, and much more the great bones.
'A good cook changes his knife every year;--(it may have been injured) in cutting; an ordinary cook changes his every month;--(it may have been) broken. Now my knife has been in use for nineteen years; it has cut up several thousand oxen, and yet its edge is as sharp as if it had newly come from the whetstone. There are the interstices of the joints, and the edge of the knife has no (appreciable) thickness; when that which is so thin enters where the interstice is, how easily it moves along! The
blade has more than room enough. Nevertheless, whenever I come to a complicated joint, and see that there will be some difficulty, I proceed anxiously and with caution, not allowing my eyes to wander from the place, and moving my hand slowly. Then by a very slight movement of the knife, the part is quickly separated, and drops like (a clod of) earth to the ground. Then standing up with the knife in my hand, I look all round, and in a leisurely manner, with an air of satisfaction, wipe it clean, and put it in its sheath.' The ruler Wän-hui said, 'Excellent! I have heard the words of my cook, and learned from them the nourishment of (our) life.'
3. When Kung-wän Hsien 1 saw the Master of the Left, he was startled, and said, 'What sort of man is this? How is it he has but one foot? Is it from Heaven? or from Man?' Then he added 2, 'It must be from Heaven, and not from Man. Heaven's making of this man caused him to have but one foot. In the person of man, each foot has its marrow. By this I know that his peculiarity is from Heaven, and not from Man. A pheasant of the marshes has to take ten steps to pick up a mouthful of food, and thirty steps to get a drink, but it does not seek to be nourished in a coop. Though its spirit would (there) enjoy a royal abundance, it does not think (such confinement) good.'
4. When Lâo Tan died 1, Khin Shih 2 went to condole (with his son), but after crying out three times, he came out. The disciples 3 said to him, 'Were you not a friend of the Master?' 'I was,' he replied, and they said, 'Is it proper then to offer your condolences merely as you have done?' He said, 'It is. At first I thought he was the man of men, and now I do not think so. When I entered a little ago and expressed my condolences, there were the old men wailing as if they had lost a son, and the young men wailing as if they had lost their mother. In his attracting and uniting them to himself in such a way there must have been that which made them involuntarily express their words (of condolence), and involuntarily wail, as they were doing. And this was a hiding from himself of his Heaven (-nature), and an excessive indulgence of his (human) feelings;--a forgetting of what he had received (in being born); what the ancients called the punishment due to neglecting the Heaven (-nature) 4. When the Master came 5, it was at the proper time; when he went away, it was the simple sequence (of his coming). Quiet acquiescence in what happens at its proper time, and quietly submitting (to its ceasing) afford no occasion for grief or for joy 6. The ancients described (death) as the loosening of the
cord on which God suspended (the life) 1. What we can point to are the faggots that have been consumed; but the fire is transmitted (elsewhere), and we know not that it is over and ended 2.
198:1 See pp. 130, 131.
198:2 Under what is said about knowledge here there lies the objection of Tâoists to the Confucian pursuit of knowledge as the means for the right conduct of life, instead of the quiet simplicity and self-suppression of their own system.
198:3 This is the key to the three paragraphs that follow. But the text of it is not easily construed. The 'doing good' and the doing evil' are to be lightly understood.
198:4 A name for the Tâo.
198:5 'The ruler Wän-hui' is understood to be 'king Hui of Liang (or Wei),' with the account of an interview between whom and Mencius the works of that philosopher commence.
199:1 Two pieces of music, ascribed to Khäng Thang and Hwang-Tî.
200:1 There was a family in Wei with the double surname Kung-wän. This would be a scion of it.
200:2 This is Hsien still speaking. We have to understand his reasoning ad sensum and not ad verbum. The master of the Left had done 'evil,' so as to incur the punishment from which be suffered; and had shown himself less wise than a pheasant.
201:1 Then the account that Lâo-dze went westwards, and that nothing is known as to where he died, must be without foundation.
201:2 Nothing more is known of this person.
201:3 Probably the disciples of Lâo-dze.
201:4 Lâo had gone to an excess in his 'doing good,' as if he were seeking reputation.
201:5 Into the world.
201:6 See Kwang-dze's remarks and demeanour on the death of his wife, in Book XVIII.
202:1 This short sentence is remarkable by the use of the character Tî (
) 'God,' in it, a usage here ascribed to the ancients.
202:2 The concluding sentence might stand as a short paragraph by itself. The 'faggots' are understood to represent the body, and the 'fire' the animating spirit. The body perishes at death as the faggots are consumed by the fire. But the fire may be transmitted to other faggots, and so the spirit may migrate, and be existing elsewhere.