Whose breath are they?
Who, doing nothing, creates all this activity?
Shaman Hsien said, ‘Come, I will tell you. Heaven has six directions and five cardinal elements.56 Emperors and kings follow them and there is good government. If they act against them, there is bad government. Consider the Nine Lo, whereby harmony can rule and Virtue can be established. The scholar will illuminate all below and the whole world will be with him. This is what life is like under the August Rulers.’
Tang, the Prime Minister of Shang, asked Chuang Tzu about benevolence. Chuang Tzu said, ‘Tigers and wolves are benevolent.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The father cares for his children,’ said Chuang Tzu. ‘Is this not benevolence?’
‘But it is perfect benevolence that I am interested in.’
‘Perfect benevolence has nothing to do with affection,’ said Chuang Tzu.
But the Prime Minister replied, ‘I have heard that where there is no affection, there is no love; where there is no love, there is no filial piety. Do you mean to say that perfect benevolence is without filial piety?’
‘Certainly not. Perfect benevolence is of the highest order, and words such as “filial piety” cannot describe it. What you want to say is not that filial piety is surpassed, but that nothing even comes close to it. When a traveller goes south and then turns to face north when he has reached Ying, he cannot see Ming mountain. Why is this? Because it is far away. There is the saying: filial piety arising from respect is easy, filial piety arising from love is hard. If filial piety from love is easy, then to forget your parents is hard. It is easy to forget your parents, but it is hard to make my parents forget me. It is easy to make my parents forget me, but it is hard to make me forget the whole world. It is easy to forget the whole world, but it is hard for the whole world to forget me.
‘Virtue ignores Yao and Shun and dwells in actionless action. Its benefits embrace every generation, though no one in the world understands this. Despite your protestations, how can you talk of benevolence and filial piety? Filial piety, mutual respect, benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, integrity, resoluteness and purity, all of these can be of service to Virtue. But they are not worthy in themselves. So it is said,
‘ “Perfect nobility disregards the honours of state;
Perfect richness ignores the wealth of the country;
Perfect fulfilment ignores fame and glory.
Alone of all, the Tao never alters.” ’
Cheng of the North Gate asked the Yellow Emperor, ‘My Lord, when you had the Hsien Chih music performed in the area around Lake Tung Ting, I listened and at first I was afraid; I listened again and I was weary; I listened to the end and I was bewildered. I became upset and incapable of coherent speech and finally I lost my self assurance.’
The Yellow Emperor said, ‘That is what I would expect! I had it performed by the people, I attuned it to Heaven, I proceeded according to the principles of ritual and I rooted it in great purity. Perfect music must first of all find its response in the world of the people. It must conform to the principles of Heaven and walk with the five Virtues. It should merge with spontaneity; as a result of which it can order the sequence of the four seasons, bring great harmony to all life. This will be seen in the procession of the four seasons, bringing all life to birth. At one moment swelling, at one declining, constrained by both martial and civil boundaries. At one moment clear, at one obscure, the yin and yang are in harmony, the sounds pour forth. It is as if I were an insect awaking from hibernation or a crash of thunder; without end, without beginning, at one, death, at one, life, at one, finished, at one, surging forth. It is constant but there is no dependable pattern, this is what alarmed you.
‘Next I played it with the harmony of yin and yang, and illuminated it by the light of the sun and moon. The notes changed from short to long, from gentle to harsh. They all hung upon a single harmony but were not determined by anything. The notes filled the valleys and the gorges, and it was useless for you to try to block them out or protect your spirit, for such notes move as they wish. The notes are measured and are clear and sharp. So the ghosts and the spirits hide in the dark, and the sun, moon and stars follow their own courses. I stopped when the music stopped but the sounds flowed on. This worried you; you could not understand it; you looked for them, but could not see them; you went after them, but could not find them. You were stunned and so you stood before the universal witness of the Tao or leaned against an old tree and groaned. Your eyes could not understand and so failed you; your strength collapsed beneath you. I could not catch it. Your body dissolved into emptiness and you lost control and so achieved release. It was this which wore you out.
‘In the final section, I used notes that did not wear you out. I brought them together spontaneously. This seemed like chaos, like a thicket sprung from one root, like natural music produced from no one knows what, moving yet going nowhere, hidden in deep darkness. Some call this death, others life. Some call it fruit, others the flower. The notes moved, flowed, separated and changed, following no clear pattern. Understandably, the world is uncertain about them. The world sought advice from the sages, believing the sage to know true shape and true fate. When Heaven has not wound up the spring of life, but the five vital organs are all there ready, this is what is known as the music of Heaven, which delights the heart without
