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TAOIST TALES
Confucius, rambling in the forest of Tzu-wei, stopped and sat down by the Apricot Altar, His disciples began to read their books, while he proceeded to play on his lute, singing as he did so. He had not half finished his song when an old fisherman stepped down from his boat and came toward them. His beard and eyebrows were turning white: His hair was all uncombed; and his sleeves hung idly down. He walked thus up from the bank till he got to the the dry ground. There he stopped and, with his left hand holding one of his knees, and the right hand at his chin, listened. When the song was finished the old fisherman beckoned to Tzu Kung and Tzu Lu, who both responded and went to him. Pointing to Confucius, he said:THE OLE FISHERMAN By CHUANG TZU "What is he?" Tzu Lu replied, "He is the Superior Man of Lu." "And of what family is he?" "He is of the K'ung family." "And what is his occupation?" To this question Tzu Lu gave no reply, but Tzu Kung replied, "This scion of the K'ung family devotes himself in his own nature to loyalty and sincerity; in his conduct he manifests benevolence and righteousness. He cultivates the ornaments of ceremonies and music. He pays special attention to the relationships of society. Above, he would promote loyalty to the hereditary lords; below, he seeks the transformation of all classes of the people. His object (Confucius) devotes himself to." The stranger further asked, "Is he a ruler possessed of territory?" "No," was Tzu Kung's reply. "Is he the assistant of any prince or king?" "No." On this the stranger began to laugh and to retrace his steps, saying as he went, "Yes, benevolence is benevolence! But I am afraid he will not escape the evils incident to humanity. By embittering his mind and toiling his body he is imperiling his true nature! Alas! How far removed is he from the proper way of life!" Tzu Kung returned and reported what the man had said to Confucius, who pushed his lute aside and arose, saying: "Is he not a sage?" And down the slope he went in search of him. When he reached the edge of the lake, there was the fisherman with his pole, dragging the boat toward him. Turning round and seeing Confucius, he came back toward him and stood up. Confucius then drew back, bowed to him twice, and went forward. "What do you want with me, sir?" asked the stranger. The reply was, "A little while ago, my master, you broke off the thread of your remarks and went away. Inferior to you, I do not know what you wished to say, and have ventured here to wait for your instructions, fortunate if I may but hear the sound of your words to complete the assistance that you can give me!" "Ah!" responded the stranger, "how great is your love of learning!" Confucius bowed twice, and then rose up and said, "Since I was young I have cultivated learning, till I am now sixty-nine years old; but I have not had an opportunity of hearing the perfect teaching. Dare I but listen to you with a humble and unprejudiced mind?" The stranger replied, "like seeks to like, and birds of the same note respond to one another; this is a rule of Heaven. Allow me to explain what I am in possession of, and to pass over to the things which occupy you. What you occupy yourself with are the affairs of men. When the sovereign, the feudal lords, the great officers, and the common people‚these four classes‚do what is correct in their several positions, we have the beauty of good order. When they leave their proper duties, there ensures the greatest disorder. When the officials attend to their duties, and the common people are anxiously concerned about their business, there is no encroachment on one another's rights. "Fields running to waste, leaking rooms, insufficient food and clothing, taxes unprovided for, want of harmony among wives and concubines, want of order between old and young-these are the troubles of the common people. "Incompetency for their charges, in attention to their official business, want of prority in conduct, carelessness and idleness in subordinates, failure, of merit and excellence, uncertainty of rank and emolument‚these are the troubles of great officers. "No loyal ministers at their courts, the clans in their states rebellious, want of skill in their mechanics, articles of tribute of bad quality, late appearances at court in spring and autumn, the dissatisfaction of the sorvereign‚these are the troubles of the feudal lords. "Want of harmony between the yin and yang, unseasonableness of cold and heat affecting all things injuriously, oppression and disorder among the feudal princes and their presuming to plunder and attack one another to the their presuming to plunder and attack one another to the injury of the people, ceremonies and music ill-regulated, the resources for expenditure exhausted or deficient, the social relationships uncared for, the people abandoned to licentious disorder‚these are the troubles of the Son of Heaven and his ministers. "Now, sir, you have not the high rank of a ruler, a feudal lord, or a minister of the royal court. Nor are you in the inferior position of a great minister with his departments of business. And yet you take it on yourself to regulate ceremonies and music, and to give special attention to the relationships of society, with a view to transforming various classes of the people. Is it not an excessive multiplication of our business? "And moreover, men are liable to eight defects, and the conduct of affairs to four evils‚of which we must by all means take account. "To take the management of affairs that do not concern him is called monopolizing. To bring forward a subject that no one regards is called loquacity. To lead men on by speeches made to please them is called sycophancy. To praise men without regard to right or wrong is called flattery. To be fond of speaking of men's wickedness is called calumny. To part friends and separate relatives is called mischievousness. To praise a man deceitfully, or in the same way fix on him the character of being bad, is called depravity. Without reference to their being good or bad, to agree with men with double face in order to steal a knowledge of what they wish, is called being dangerous. Those eight defects produce disorder among other men and injury to oneself. A superior man will not make a friend of one who has them, nor will an intelligent ruler make him his minister. "To speak of what I called the four evils: to be fond of conducting great affairs, changing and altering what is of long standing, to obtain for oneself the reputation of meritorious service, is called ambition; to claim all wisdom and intrude into affairs, encroaching on the work of others and representing it as one's own, is called greediness; to see his errors without changing them, and to go on more resolutely in his own way when remonstrated with, is called obstinacy; when another agrees with him to approve of him, and, allow no course to the for evils, he begins to be capable of being taught." Confucius looked sorrowful and sighed. Again he bowed twice, then rose up and said, "I was twice driven from Lu. I had to flee from Wei; the tree under which I rested was cut down in Sung; I was kept in a state of siege between Ch'en and Ts'ai. I do not know what errors I had committed that I came to be misrepresented on these four occasions and suffered as I did." The stranger looked grieved at these words, changed countenance, and said, "Very difficult it is, sir, to make you understand. There was a man who was frightened of to escape from them. But the more frequently he lifted his feet the more numerous his footprints were; and however fast he ran, his shadow did not leave him. He thought he was going too slow, and ran on with all his speed without stopping, till his strength was exhausted and he died. He did not know that if he had stayed in a shady place, his shadow would have disappeared, and that if he had remained still, he would have lost his footprints. His stupidity was excessive! "And you, sir, exercise your judgment on questions about benevolence and righteousness; you investigate the points where agreement and difference touch; you look at the changes from movement to rest and from rest to movement; you have mastered the rules of receiving and giving; you have defined the feelings of liking and disliking; you have harmonized the limits of joy and anger; and yet you have hardly been able to escape the troubles of which you speak. If you earnestly cultivated your own person and carefully guarded your proper truth, simply rendering to others what was due to them, then you would have escaped such entanglements. But now, when you do not cultivate your own person and make the cultivation of others your object, are you not occupying yourself with what is external?" Confucius, with an air of sadness, said, "allow me to ask what it is that you call my proper truth." The stranger replied, "A man's proper truth is pure sincerity in its highest degree. Without this pure sincerity one cannot move others. Hence if one only forces himself to wail, however sadly he may do so, it is not real sorrow; if he forces himself to be angry, however he may seem to be severe, he excites no awe; if he forces himself to show affection, however he may smile, he awakens no harmonious reciprocation. True grief, without a sound, is yet sorrowful; true anger, without any demonstration, yet awakens awe; true affection, without a smile, yet produces harmonious reciprocation. Given this truth within, it exercises a spiritual efficacy without; this is why we count it so valuable. "In our relations with others, it appears according to the requirements of each case: in the service of parents, as gentle, filial duty; in the service of rulers, as loyalty and integrity; in festive drinking, as pleasant enjoyment; in the performance of the mourning rites, as sadness and sorrow. In loyalty and integrity, good service is the principal thing; in festive drinking, the enjoyment; in the mourning rites, the sorrow; in the service of parents, giving them pleasure. The beauty of the service rendered to a ruler does not require that it always be performed in one way; the service of parents so as to give them pleasure takes no account of how it is done; the festive drinking that ministers to enjoyment does not depend on the glasses and bottles; the observance of the mourning rites with the proper sorrow asks no questions about the rites themselves. Rites are prescribed for the practice of the common people: man's proper truth is what he has received from Heaven, operating spontaneously and unchangeable. Therefore the sages take their law from Heaven, and prize their proper truth without submitting to the restriction of custom. "The stupid do the reverse of this. They are unable to take their law from Heaven, and are influenced by other men; they do not know how to prize the proper truth of their nature, but are under the dominion of ordinary things and change according to the customs around them‚always, consequently, incomplete. Alas for you, sir, that you were early steeped in the hypocrisies of men and have been so late in hearing about the Great Way!" Once more, Confucius bowed twice to the fisherman, then rose and said, "That I have met you today is as if I had the happiness of getting to heaven. If you, Master, are not ashamed but will let me be as your servant and continue to teach me, let me venture to ask where your dwelling is. I will then beg to receive your instructions there and finish my learning of the Great Way." The stranger replied, "I have heard the saying, 'If there is one with whom you can walk together, go with him to the subtlest mysteries of the Tao. If it is one with whom you cannot walk together and he does not know the Tao, take care that you do not associate with him and you will yourself incur no responsibility.'" Do your utmost, sir, I must leave you, I must leave you!" With this he shoved off his boat and went away among the green reeds. Yen Yuan now returned to the carriage and Tzu Lu handed him the strap. But Confucius did not look round, continuing where he was till the wavelets were stilled and he did not hear the sound of the pole. At last he ventured to return and take his seat. Tzu Lu, by his side in the carriage, asked him, saying: "I have been your servant for a long time, but I have never seen you, Master, treat another with the awe and reverence you have now shown. I have seen you in the presence of a lord of ten thousand chariots or a ruler of a thousand and they have never received you in a different audience room or treated you but with the courtesies due to an equal, while you still carried yourself with a reserved and haughty air. But today this old fisherman has stood erect in front of you with his pole in his hand while you, bent from your loins in the form of a sounding stone, would bow twice before you answered him. Was not your reverence of him excessive? Your the old fisherman receive such homage from you?" Confucius leaned forward on the crossbar of the carriage, heaved a sigh, and said, "Difficult indeed is it to change you, O Yu! You have been trained in propriety and righteousness for long, and yet your servile and mean heart has not been taken from you. Come nearer, that I may speak fully to you. If you meet one older than yourself and do not show him respect, you fail in propriety. If you see a man of superior wisdom and goodness and do not honor him, you lack the great characteristic of humanity. If that fisherman did not possess it in the highest degree, how could he make others submit to him? And if their submission is not sincere, they do not injury on their persons. Alas! There is no greater calamity to man than the lack of this characteristic. And you, O Yu, you alone, would take such lack on yourself. "Moreover, the Tao is the course by which all things should proceed. For things to fail in this is death; to observe it is life. To oppose it in practice is ruin; to conform to it is success. Therefore, wherever the sagely man finds the Tao he honors it. And that old fisherman today might be said to possess it. Dared I presume not to show him reverence?" Colveyco Reading Room Purchase this book through Amazon.com: Taoist Tales |