(4) For what they cared for could be reduced to ONE, and what they did not care for to ONE also. That which was ONE was ONE, and that which was not ONE was likewise ONE. In that which was ONE, they were of God; in that which was not ONE, they were of Man. And so between the human and the divine no conflict ensued. This was to be a pure man. Life and Death belong to Destiny. Their sequence, like day and night, is of God, beyond the interference of man, an inevitable law. A man looks upon God as upon his father, and loves him in like measure. Shall he then not love that which is greater than God? A man looks upon a ruler of men as upon some one better than himself, for whom he would sacrifice his life. Shall he not then do so for the Supreme Ruler of Creation? When the pond dries up, and the fishes are left upon dry ground, to moisten them with the breath or to damp them with spittle is not to be compared with leaving them in the first instance in their native rivers and lakes. And better than praising Yao and blaming Chieh would be leaving them both and attending to the development of Tao. Tao gives me this form, this toil in manhood, this repose in old age, this rest in death. And surely that which is such a kind arbiter of my life is the best arbiter of my death. A boat may be hidden in a creek, or in a bog, safe enough.

(6) life is but a concentration of the vital fluid, whose longest and shortest terms of existence vary by an inappreciable space,—-hardly enough for the classification of Yao and Chieh. "Tree-fruits and plant-fruits exhibit order in their varieties; and the relationships of man, though more difficult to be dealt with, may still be reduced to order. The true Sage who meets with these, does not violate them. Neither does he continue to hold fast by them. Adaptation by arrangement is Tê. Spontaneous adaptation is Tao, by which sovereigns flourish and princes succeed. "Man passes through this sublunary life as a white horse passes a crack. Here one moment, gone the next. Neither are there any not equally subject to the ingress and egress of mortality. One modification brings life; then another, and it is death. Living creatures cry out; human beings sorrow. The bow-sheath is slipped off; the clothes-bag is dropped; and in the confusion the soul wings its flight, and the body follows, on the great journey home!

(7) "The determination to retire, to renounce the world,—such alas! is not the fruit of perfect wisdom or immaculate virtue. From cataclysms ahead, these do not turn back; nor do they heed the approach of devouring flame. Although there are class distinctions of high and low, these are but for a time, and under the changed conditions of a new sphere are unknown. "Wherefore it has been said, 'The perfect man leaves no trace behind.' "For instance, to glorify the past and to condemn the present has always been the way of the scholar. Yet if Hsi Wei Shih and individuals of that class were caused to re-appear in the present day, which of them but would accommodate himself to the age? "Only the perfect man can transcend the limits of the human and yet not withdraw from the world, live in accord with mankind and yet suffer no injury himself. Of the world's teachings he learns nothing. He has that within which makes him independent of others. "If the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. If the ear is unobstructed the result is hearing. If the nose is unobstructed, the result is sense of smell. If the mouth is unobstructed, the result is sense of taste. If the mind is unobstructed, the result is wisdom. If wisdom is unobstructed, the result is Tê. " Tao may not be obstructed. To obstruct is to strangle. This affects the base, and all evils spring into life. "All sentient beings depend upon breath. If this does not reach them in sufficient quantity, it is not the fault of God. God supplies it day and night without cease, but man stops the passage.

(2) Charity can be evoked. Duty to one's neighbour can be wrongly directed. Ceremonies are mere shams. "Therefore it has been said, 'If Tao perishes, then Tê will perish. If Tê perishes, then charity will perish. If charity perishes, then duty to one's neighbour will perish. If duty to one's neighbour perishes, then ceremonies will perish. Ceremonies are but a showy ornament of Tao, while oft-times the source of trouble.' "Therefore it has been said, 'Those who practise Tao suffer daily loss. If that loss proceeds until inaction ensues, then by that very inaction there is nothing which cannot be done.' "Now, we are already beings. And if we desire to revert to our original condition, how difficult that is! 'Tis a change to which only the greatest among us are equal. "Life follows upon death. Death is the beginning of life. Who knows when the end is reached? The life of man results from convergence of the vital fluid. Its convergence is life; its dispersion, death. If then life and death are but consecutive states, what need have I to complain? "Therefore all things are One. What we love is animation. What we hate is corruption. But corruption in its turn becomes animation, and animation once more becomes corruption. "Therefore it has been said, The world is permeated by a single vital fluid, and Sages accordingly venerate One."

(50) Men come forth and live; they enter (again) and die. Of every ten three are ministers of life (to themselves); and three are ministers of death. There are also three in every ten whose aim is to live, but whose movements tend to the land (or place) of death. And for what reason? Because of their excessive endeavours to perpetuate life. But I have heard that he who is skilful in managing the life entrusted to him for a time travels on the land without having to shun rhinoceros or tiger, and enters a host without having to avoid buff coat or sharp weapon. The rhinoceros finds no place in him into which to thrust its horn, nor the tiger a place in which to fix its claws, nor the weapon a place to admit its point. And for what reason? Because there is in him no place of death.

(3) When Tai lay dying someone asked him: 'O Tai, you have seen the essence of things, how is it with you now?' He said: ' I can say nothing about my state. I have measured the wind all the days of my life, and now the end is come I shall be buried, and so, good night.'

There is no other remedy for death than to look death constantly in the face. We all are born to die; life will not stay with us; we must submit. Even he who held the world under the seal of his ring is now only a mineral in the earth.

(3) "Man may rest in the eternal fitness; he may abide in the everlasting; and roam from the beginning to the end of all creation. He may bring his nature to a condition of ONE; he may nourish his strength; he may harmonize his virtue, and so put himself into partnership with God. Then, when his divinity is thus assured, and his spirit closed in on all sides, how can anything find a passage within? "A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people's; but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear, etc., cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existences. And if such security is to be got from wine, how much more is it to be got from God. It is in God that the Sage seeks his refuge, and so he is free from harm. "An avenger does not snap in twain the murderous weapon; neither does the most spiteful man carry his resentment to a tile which may have hit him on the head. And by the extension of this principle, the empire would be at peace; no more confusion of war, no more punishment of death.

(77) As when the air, which also is man's mother, is withdrawn from a man, he must needs die; so also the angels cannot live without their mother.

(2) But what inducement is there to renounce the affairs of men, to become indifferent to life?—In the first case, the physical body suffers no wear and tear; in the second, the vitality is left unharmed. And he whose physical frame is perfect and whose vitality is in its original purity,—he is one with God. Heaven and earth are the father and mother of all things. When they unite, the result is shape. When they disperse, the original condition is renewed. But if body and vitality are both perfect, this state is called fit for translation. Such perfection of vitality goes back to the minister of God. Lieh Tzŭ asked Kuan Yin, saying, "The perfect man can walk through solid bodies without obstruction. He can pass through fire without being burnt. He can scale the highest heights without fear. How does he bring himself to this?" "It is because he is in a condition of absolute purity," replied Kuan Yin. "It is not cunning which enables him to dare such feats. Be seated, and I will tell you. "All that has form, sound, and colour, may be classed under the head thing. Man differs so much from the rest, and stands at the head of all things, simply because the latter are but what they appear and nothing more. But man can attain to formlessness and vanquish death. And with that which is in possession of the eternal, how can mere things compare?

(2) He does not die in water , nay, he is rich in water who knowing this meditates on the fivefold Sâman as all waters.

(1) Out of the water and out of the moon the divine Breath enters him. Verily, that is the divine Breath which, whether moving or not moving, is not perturbed, nor injured. He who knows this becomes the Self of all beings. As is that divinity [i.e. Prajapati], so is he. As all beings favor that divinity, so to him who knows this all beings show favor. Whatever sufferings creatures endure, these remain with them. Only good goes to him. Evil, verily, does not go to the gods. Breath, the unfailing power in a person: like the unwearying world-breath, wind

(3) "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." 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."

(15) 'When all the ties of the heart are severed here on earth, then the mortal becomes immortal--here ends the teaching.'

(7) thinks nothing, the soul will preserve the body, and the body will live for ever. "Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse. Then I will place you upon that abode of Great Light which is the source of the positive Power, and escort you through the gate of Profound Mystery which is the source of the negative Power. These Powers are the controllers of heaven and earth, and each contains the other. "Cherish and preserve your own self, and all the rest will prosper of itself. I preserve the original One, while resting in harmony with externals. It is because I have thus cared for my self now for twelve hundred years that my body has not decayed." The Yellow Emperor prostrated himself and said, "Kuang Ch'êng Tzŭ is surely God...." Whereupon the latter continued, "Come, I will tell you. That self is eternal; yet all men think it mortal. That self is infinite; yet all men think it finite. Those who possess Tao are princes in this life and rulers in the hereafter. Those who do not possess Tao, behold the light of day in this life and become clods of earth in the hereafter.

(4) "What advantage is there in what men call not dying? The body decomposes, and the mind goes with it. This is our real cause for sorrow. Can the world be so dull as not to see this? Or is it I alone who am dull, and others not so? "If we are to be guided by the criteria of our own minds, who shall be without a guide? What need to know of the alternations of passion, when the mind thus affords scope to itself?—verily even the minds of fools! Whereas, for a mind without criteria to admit the idea of contraries, is like saying, I went to Yüeh to-day, and got there yesterday. Or, like placing nowhere somewhere,—topography which even the Great Yü would fail to understand; how much more I? "Speech is not mere breath. It is differentiated by meaning. Take away that, and you cannot say whether it is speech or not. Can you even distinguish it from the chirping of young birds? "But how can Tao be so obscured that we speak of it as true and false? And how can speech be so obscured that it admits the idea of contraries? How can Tao go away and yet not remain? How can speech exist and yet be impossible? " Tao is obscured by our want of grasp. Speech is obscured by the gloss of this world. Hence the affirmatives and negatives of the Confucian and Mihist schools, each denying what the other affirmed and affirming what the other denied. But he who would reconcile affirmative with negative and negative with affirmative, must do so by the light of nature.

(86) But when the sweet water can defend itself no longer, then anguish riseth up in it; just as in man, when he is dying, when the spirit is departing from the body, and so the body yieldeth itself captive as a prisoner to death; just so the water also yieldeth itself captive as a prisoner.

(9) "Those who understand Tao," answered the Spirit of the Ocean, "must necessarily apprehend the eternal principles above mentioned and be clear as to their application. Consequently, they do not suffer any injury from without. "The man of perfect virtue cannot be burnt by fire, nor drowned in water, nor hurt by frost or sun, nor torn by wild bird or beast. Not that he makes light of these; but that he discriminates between safety and danger. Happy under prosperous and adverse circumstances alike, cautious as to what he discards and what he accepts;—nothing can harm him. "Therefore it has been said that the natural abides within, the artificial without. Virtue abides in the natural. Knowledge of the action of the natural and of the artificial has its root in the natural, its development in virtue. And thus, whether in motion or at rest, whether in expansion or in contraction, there is always a reversion to the essential and to the ultimate." "What do you mean," enquired the Spirit of the River, "by the natural and the artificial?" "Horses and oxen," answered the Spirit of the Ocean, "have four feet. That is the natural. Put a halter on a horse's head, a string through a bullock's nose,—that is the artificial. "Therefore it has been said, do not let the artificial obliterate the natural; do not let will obliterate destiny; do not let virtue be sacrificed to fame. Diligently observe these precepts without fail, and thus you will revert to the divine." The walrus envies the centipede; the centipede envies the snake; the snake envies the wind; the Wind envies the eye; the eye envies the mind;

(5) 'No mortal lives by the breath that goes up and by the breath that goes down. We live by another, in whom these two repose.'

(8) "Nowadays, all living things spring from the dust and to the dust return. But I will lead you through the portals of Eternity into the domain of Infinity. My light is the light of sun and moon. My life is the life of heaven and earth. I know not who comes nor who goes. Men may all die, but I endure for ever." The Spirit of the Clouds when passing eastwards through the expanse of Air happened to fall in with the Vital Principle. The latter was slapping his ribs and hopping about; whereupon the Spirit of the Clouds said, "Who are you, old man, and what are you doing here?" "Strolling!" replied the Vital Principle, without stopping. "I want to know something," continued the Spirit of the Clouds. "Ah!" uttered the Vital Principle, in a tone of disapprobation. "The relationship of heaven and earth is out of harmony," said the Spirit of the Clouds; "the six influences do not combine, and the four seasons are no longer regular. I desire to blend the six influences so as to nourish all living beings. What am I to do?" "I do not know!" cried the Vital Principle, shaking his head, while still slapping his ribs and hopping about; "I do not know!"

(9) (14) Over against that body, stands the principle which is self-caused, which is all that neither enters into being nor passes away, the principle whose dissolution would mean the end of all things never to be restored if once this had ceased to be, the sustaining principle of things individually, and of this kosmos, which owes its maintenance and its ordered system to the soul.

This is the starting point of motion and becomes the leader and provider of motion to all else: it moves by its own quality, and every living material form owes life to this principle, which of itself lives in a life that, being essentially innate, can never fail.

Not all things can have a life merely at second hand; this would give an infinite series: there must be some nature which, having life primally, shall be of necessity indestructible, immortal, as the source of life to all else that lives. This is the point at which all that is divine and blessed must be situated, living and having being of itself, possessing primal being and primal life, and in its own essence rejecting all change, neither coming to be nor passing away.

Whence could such a being arise or into what could it disappear: the very word, strictly used, means that the thing is perdurable. Similarly white, the colour, cannot be now white and now not white: if this "white" were a real being it would be eternal as well as being white: the colour is merely white but whatsoever possesses being, indwelling by nature and primal, will possess also eternal duration. In such an entity this primal and eternal Being cannot be dead like stone or plank: it must be alive, and that with a life unalloyed as long as it remains self-gathered: when the primal Being blends with an inferior principle, it is hampered in its relation to the highest, but without suffering the loss of its own nature since it can always recover its earliest state by turning its tendency back to its own.