(7) There is nothing in nature wherein there is not good and evil; everything moveth and liveth in this double impulse, working or operation, be it what it will.

(2) In this, no effort is ever lost and no harm is ever done. Even very little of this dharma saves a man from the Great Fear.

(20) Since we are not entitled to make desire the test by which to decide on the nature and quality of the good, we may perhaps have recourse to judgement.

We would apply the opposition of things- order, disorder; symmetry, irregularity; health, illness; form, shapelessness; real-being, decay: in a word continuity against dissolution. The first in each pair, no one could doubt, belong to the concept of good and therefore whatever tends to produce them must be ranged on the good side.

Thus virtue and Intellectual-Principle and life and soul- reasoning soul, at least- belong to the idea of good and so therefore does all that a reasoned life aims at.

Why not halt, then- it will be asked- at Intellectual-Principle and make that The Good? Soul and life are traces of Intellectual-Principle; that principle is the Term of Soul which on judgement sets itself towards Intellectual-Principle, pronouncing right preferable to wrong and virtue in every form to vice, and thus ranking by its choosing.

The soul aiming only at that Principle would need a further lessoning; it must be taught that Intellectual-Principle is not the ultimate, that not all things look to that while all do look to the good. Not all that is outside of Intellectual-Principle seeks to attain it; what has attained it does not halt there but looks still towards good. Besides, Intellectual-Principle is sought upon motives of reasoning, the good before all reason. And in any striving towards life and continuity of existence and activity, the object is aimed at not as Intellectual-Principle but as good, as rising from good and leading to it: life itself is desirable only in view of good.

(2) Such is the Tao of the universe, such is the virtue of the Sage. Wherefore it has been said, "In tranquillity, in stillness, in the unconditioned, in inaction, we find the levels of the universe, the very constitution of Tao." Wherefore it has been said, "The Sage is a negative quantity, and is consequently in a state of passivity. Being passive he is in a state of repose. And where passivity and repose are, there sorrow and anxiety do not enter, and foul influences do not collect. And thus his virtue is complete and his spirituality unimpaired." Wherefore it has been said, "The birth of the Sage is the will of God; his death is but a modification of existence. In repose, he shares the passivity of the Yin; in action, the energy of the Yang. He will have nothing to do with happiness, and so has nothing to do with misfortune. He must be influenced ere he will respond. He must be urged ere he will move. He must be compelled ere he will arise. Ignoring the future and the past, he resigns himself to the laws of God. "And therefore no calamity comes upon him, nothing injures him, no man is against him, no spirit punishes him. He floats through life to rest in death. He has no anxieties; he makes no plans. His honour does not make him illustrious. His good faith reflects no credit upon himself. His sleep is dreamless, his awaking without pain. His spirituality is pure, and his soul vigorous. Thus unconditioned and in repose, he is a partaker of the virtue of God."

(5) "My mind is trammelled," replied Lao Tzŭ, "and I cannot know. My mouth is closed and I cannot speak. But I will try to tell you what is probably the truth. "The perfect Negative principle is majestically passive. The perfect Positive principle is powerfully active. Passivity emanates from heaven above; activity proceeds from earth beneath. The interaction of the two results in that harmony by which all things are produced. There may be a First Cause, but we never see his form. His report fills space. There is darkness and light. Days come and months go. Work is being constantly performed, yet we never witness the performance. Life must bring us from somewhere, and death must carry us back. Beginning and end follow ceaselessly one upon the other, and we cannot say when the series will be exhausted. If this is not the work of a First Cause, what is it?" "Kindly explain," said Confucius, "what is to be got by wandering as you said." "The result," answered Lao Tzŭ, "is perfect goodness and perfect happiness. And he who has these is a perfect man." "And by what means," enquired Confucius, "can this be attained?" "Animals," said Lao Tzŭ, "that eat grass do not mind a change of pasture. Creatures that live in water do not mind a change of pond. A slight change may be effected so long as the essential is untouched.

(7) 'Those whose conduct has been good, will quickly attain some good birth, the birth of a Brâhmana, or a Kshatriya, or a Vaisya. But those whose conduct has been evil, will quickly attain an evil birth, the birth of a dog, or a hog, or a Kandâla.

(1) The principles of all virtue are three; knowledge, power, and deliberate choice. And knowledge indeed, is that by which we contemplate and form a judgment of things; power is as it were a certain strength of the nature from which we derive our subsistence, and is that which gives stability to our actions; and deliberate choice is as it were certain hands of the soul by which we are impelled to, and lay hold on the objects of our choice. The order of the soul also subsists as follows: One part of it is the reasoning power, another part is anger, and another is desire. And the reasoning power indeed, is that which has dominion over knowledge; anger is that which rules over the ardent impulses of the soul; and desire is that which willingly rules over appetite.

When therefore, these three pass into one, so as to exhibit one co-adaptation, then virtue and concord are produced in the soul; but when they are seditious, and divulsed from each other, then vice and discord are generated in the soul. And when the reasoning power prevails over the irrational parts of the soul, then endurance and continence are produced; endurance indeed, in the retention of pains; but continence in the abstinence from pleasures. But when the irrational parts of the soul prevail over the reasoning power, then effeminacy and incontinence are produced; effeminacy indeed, in flying from pain; but incontinence, in the being vanquished by pleasures. When however, the better part of the soul governs, but the less excellent part is governed; and the former leads, but the latter follows, and both consent, and are concordant with each other, then virtue and every good are generated in the whole soul.

When likewise the appetitive follows the reasoning part of the soul, then temperance is produced; but when this is the case with the irascible part, fortitude is produced; and when it takes place in all the parts of the soul, then justice is the result. For justice is that which separates all the vices and all the virtues of the soul from each other. And justice is a certain established order of the apt conjunction of the parts of the soul, and perfect and supreme virtue. For every good is contained in this; but the other goods of the soul cannot subsist without this. Hence justice possesses great strength both among Gods and men. For this virtue contains the bond by which the whole and the universe are held together, and also by which Gods and men are connected.

Justice therefore, is said to be Themis among the celestial, but Dice among the terrestrial Gods; and Law among men. These assertions however, are indications and symbols, that justice is the supreme virtue. Hence virtue, when it consists in contemplating and judging, is called prudence; when in sustaining things of a dreadful nature, it is denominated fortitude; when in restraining pleasure, temperance; and when in abstaining from gain, and from injuring our neighbours, justice.

(4) This very [doctrine] has been declared in the verse: — This eternal greatness of a Brahman Is not increased by deeds (karma), nor diminished. One should be familiar with it. By knowing it, One is not stained by evil action. Therefore, having this knowledge, having become calm, subdued, quiet, patiently enduring, and collected, one sees the Soul just in the soul. One sees everything as the Soul. Evil does not overcome him; he overcomes all evil. Evil does not burn him; he burns all evil. Free from evil, free from impurity, free from doubt, he becomes a Brahman. This is the Brahma-world, O king/ said Yajnavalkya. [Janaka said:] ' I will give you, noble Sir, the Videhas and myself also to be your slave.'

(2) But the Universe outside; how is it aligned towards the Good?

The soulless by direction toward Soul: Soul towards the Good itself, through the Intellectual-Principle.

Everything has something of the Good, by virtue of possessing a certain degree of unity and a certain degree of Existence and by participation in Ideal-Form: to the extent of the Unity, Being, and Form which are present, there is a sharing in an image, for the Unity and Existence in which there is participation are no more than images of the Ideal-Form.

With Soul it is different; the First-Soul, that which follows upon the Intellectual-Principle, possesses a life nearer to the Verity and through that Principle is of the nature of good; it will actually possess the Good if it orientate itself towards the Intellectual-Principle, since this follows immediately upon the Good.

In sum, then, life is the Good to the living, and the Intellectual-Principle to what is intellective; so that where there is life with intellection there is a double contact with the Good.

(1) Thine own intellect, which is now voidness, yet not to be regarded as of the voidness of nothingness, but as being the intellect itself, unobstructed, shining, thrilling, and blissful, is the very consciousness, the All-good Buddha.

(9) But what approach have we to the knowing of Good and Evil?

And first of the Evil of soul: Virtue, we may know by the Intellectual-Principle and by means of the philosophic habit; but Vice?

A a ruler marks off straight from crooked, so Vice is known by its divergence from the line of Virtue.

But are we able to affirm Vice by any vision we can have of it, or is there some other way of knowing it?

Utter viciousness, certainly not by any vision, for it is utterly outside of bound and measure; this thing which is nowhere can be seized only by abstraction; but any degree of evil falling short of The Absolute is knowable by the extent of that falling short.

We see partial wrong; from what is before us we divine that which is lacking to the entire form thus indicated; we see that the completed Kind would be the Indeterminate; by this process we are able to identify and affirm Evil. In the same way when we observe what we feel to be an ugly appearance in Matter- left there because the Reason-Principle has not become so completely the master as to cover over the unseemliness- we recognise Ugliness by the falling-short from Ideal-Form.

But how can we identify what has never had any touch of Form?

We utterly eliminate every kind of Form; and the object in which there is none whatever we call Matter: if we are to see Matter we must so completely abolish Form that we take shapelessness into our very selves.

In fact it is another Intellectual-Principle, not the true, this which ventures a vision so uncongenial.

To see darkness the eye withdraws from the light; it is striving to cease from seeing, therefore it abandons the light which would make the darkness invisible; away from the light its power is rather that of not-seeing than of seeing and this not-seeing is its nearest approach to seeing Darkness. So the Intellectual-Principle, in order to see its contrary , must leave its own light locked up within itself, and as it were go forth from itself into an outside realm, it must ignore its native brightness and submit itself to the very contradition of its being.

(16) Buddha speaks of the transient, the creator of consciousness, as being the fundamental truth of religion. And, in our Taoism, the expression " to produce emptiness " contains the whole work of completing life and essence. All three religions agree in the one proposition, the inding of the spiritual Elixir in order to pass from death to life. In what does this spiritual Elixir consist? It means forever tarrying in purposelessness. The deepest secret in our teaching, the secret of the bath, is confined to the work of making the heart empty. Therewith the heart is set at rest. What I have revealed here in a word is the fruit of decades of effort.

(6) If this reasoning is valid, The Good has no scope whatever for intellection which demands something attractive from outside. The Good, then, is without Act. What Act indeed, could be vested in Activity's self? No activity has yet again an activity; and whatever we may add to such Activities as depend from something else, at least we must leave the first Activity of them all, that from which all depend, as an uncontaminated identity, one to which no such addition can be made.

That primal Activity, then, is not an intellection, for there is nothing upon which it could Exercise intellection since it is The First; besides, intellection itself does not exercise the intellective act; this belongs to some principle in which intellection is vested. There is, we repeat, duality in any thinking being; and the First is wholly above the dual.

But all this may be made more evident by a clearer recognition of the twofold principle at work wherever there is intellection:

When we affirm the reality of the Real Beings and their individual identity of being and declare that these Real Beings exist in the Intellectual Realm, we do not mean merely that they remain unchangeably self-identical by their very essence, as contrasted with the fluidity and instability of the sense-realm; the sense-realm itself may contain the enduring. No; we mean rather that these principles possess, as by their own virtue, the consummate fulness of being. The Essence described as the primally existent cannot be a shadow cast by Being, but must possess Being entire; and Being is entire when it holds the form and idea of intellection and of life. In a Being, then, the existence, the intellection, the life are present as an aggregate. When a thing is a Being, it is also an Intellectual-Principle, when it is an Intellectual-Principle it is a Being; intellection and Being are co-existents. Therefore intellection is a multiple not a unitary and that which does not belong to this order can have no Intellection. And if we turn to the partial and particular, there is the Intellectual form of man, and there is man, there is the Intellectual form of horse and there is horse, the Intellectual form of Justice, and Justice.

Thus all is dual: the unit is a duality and yet again the dual reverts to unity.

That, however, which stands outside all this category can be neither an individual unity nor an aggregate of all the duals or in any way a duality. How the duals rose from The One is treated elsewhere.

What stands above Being stands above intellection: it is no weakness in it not to know itself, since as pure unity it contains nothing which it needs to explore. But it need not even spend any knowing upon things outside itself: this which was always the Good of all gives them something greater and better than its knowledge of them in giving them in their own identity to cling, in whatever measure be possible, to a principle thus lofty.

(18) Some philosophers declare that action should be abandoned as an evil, and others (declare) that acts of yajna , and Tapas should not be abandoned.

(5) "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. "You hear not with the ears, but with the mind; not with the mind, but with your soul. 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?"

(12) If the existence of Matter be denied, the necessity of this Principle must be demonstrated from the treatises "On Matter" where the question is copiously treated.

To deny Evil a place among realities is necessarily to do away with the Good as well, and even to deny the existence of anything desirable; it is to deny desire, avoidance and all intellectual act; for desire has Good for its object, aversion looks to Evil; all intellectual act, all Wisdom, deals with Good and Bad, and is itself one of the things that are good.

There must then be The Good- good unmixed- and the Mingled Good and Bad, and the Rather Bad than Good, this last ending with the Utterly Bad we have been seeking, just as that in which Evil constitutes the lesser part tends, by that lessening, towards the Good.

What, then, must Evil be to the Soul?

What Soul could contain Evil unless by contact with the lower Kind? There could be no desire, no sorrow, no rage, no fear: fear touches the compounded dreading its dissolution; pain and sorrow are the accompaniments of the dissolution; desires spring from something troubling the grouped being or are a provision against trouble threatened; all impression is the stroke of something unreasonable outside the Soul, accepted only because the Soul is not devoid of parts or phases; the Soul takes up false notions through having gone outside of its own truth by ceasing to be purely itself.

One desire or appetite there is which does not fall under this condemnation; it is the aspiration towards the Intellectual-Principle: this demands only that the Soul dwell alone enshrined within that place of its choice, never lapsing towards the lower.

Evil is not alone: by virtue of the nature of Good, the power of Good, it is not Evil only: it appears, necessarily, bound around with bonds of Beauty, like some captive bound in fetters of gold; and beneath these it is hidden so that, while it must exist, it may not be seen by the gods, and that men need not always have evil before their eyes, but that when it comes before them they may still be not destitute of Images of the Good and Beautiful for their Remembrance.

(1) Thine own consciousness, not formed into anything, in reality void, and the intellect, shining and blissful, — these two, — are inseparable. The union of them is the Dharma-Kaya state of Perfect Enlightenment.

(93) He whose appetites are stilled, who is not absorbed in enjoyment, who has perceived void and unconditioned freedom (Nirvâna), his path is difficult to understand, like that of birds in the air.

(3) Wherefore it has been said, "Sorrow and happiness are the heresies of virtue; joy and anger lead astray from Tao; love and hate cause the loss of virtue. The heart unconscious of sorrow and happiness,—that is perfect virtue. One, without change,—that is perfect repose. Without any obstruction,—that is the perfection of the unconditioned. Holding no relations with the external world,—that is perfection of the negative state. Without blemish of any kind,—that is the perfection of purity." Wherefore it has been said, "If the body toils without rest, it dies. If the mind is employed without ceasing, it becomes wearied; and being wearied, its power is gone." Pure water is by nature clear. If untouched, it is smooth. If dammed, it will not flow, neither will it be clear. It is an emblem of the virtue of God. Wherefore it has been said, "Pure, without admixture; uniform, without change; negative, without action; moved, only at the will of God;—such would be the spirituality nourished according to Tao." Those who possess blades from Kan or Yüeh, keep them carefully in their scabbards, and do not venture to use them. For they are precious in the extreme. The spirit spreads forth on all sides: there is no point to which it does not reach, attaining heaven above, embracing earth beneath. Influencing all creation, its form cannot be portrayed. Its name is then Of-God.

(1) Knowing this is sufficient. Recognizing the voidness of thine own intellect to be Buddhahood, and looking upon it as being thine own consciousness, is to keep thyself in the [state of the] divine mind of the Buddha.