Confucius said, ‘Don’t hide inside, don’t come out and shine like yang, but hold steadfastly to the middle ground. Follow these three rules and you will be known as one of the truest. When people are about to set out on a dangerous journey, if they hear that one person in ten has been killed, then fathers, sons, elder and younger brothers will all warn them to be careful and they will not set off until they have an armed escort. That is wise, isn’t it? People should really worry about what truly worries them, the thoughts that come when they are lying awake in bed or at table eating and drinking. But they don’t understand these warnings – what an error!’
The priest of the ancestors looked into the pigsty and said, ‘What’s so bad about dying? I fatten you up for three months, then I undergo spiritual discipline for ten days, fast for three days, lay out the white reeds, carve up your shoulders and rump and lay them on the place of sacrifice. Surely you’re OK with that, aren’t you?’
It is, however, true to say that from the perspective of the pig it would be better to eat oats and bran and stay there in the pigsty. It is also true that, looking at this from my perspective, I’d like to be honoured as an important official while alive and, when I die, be buried with a horse-drawn hearse, lying upon a bed of feathers. I could live with that! From the pig’s point of view, I wouldn’t give a penny for such a life, but from my point of view, I’d be very content, though I wonder why I perceive things so differently from a pig?
Duke Huan73 was out hunting in the fields, accompanied by Kuan Chung74 as his driver, when they saw a ghost. The Duke grabbed Kuan Chung’s hand and said, ‘Kuan Chung, what do you see?’ He replied, ‘I don’t see anything.’
The Duke returned home, fell ill, got worse, and for a number of days did not venture out. A scholar of Chi called Huang Tzu Kao Ao said, ‘Sire, you are harming yourself, for the ghost does not have the evil to harm you! When the original breath within is scattered and will not reunite, then weakness follows. If it goes up but will not come down, it makes a man bad-tempered. If it goes down but will not come up, it makes a man very forgetful. If it goes neither up nor down, but centres upon the body, at the heart, then illness comes.’
‘Is it certain that ghosts exist?’ asked Duke Huan.
‘There are such things,’ he replied. ‘The hearth has one,75 the store has one. The pile of rubbish outside the walls has one. The northeast under the eaves has two; the north-west under the eaves has one. In the water there is one; in the hills there is another. The mountains have their own, as do the meadows and the swamps.’
‘Can I ask you what a swamp ghost looks like?’ said the Duke.
‘The swamp ghost is as big as a wheel rim, as high as a carriage axle, wears a purple gown, a fur hat and is hideous, as such things usually are. Hearing the sound of a waggon or thunder, it holds its head and rises. To see this creature means you will become a dictator.’
Duke Huan was absolutely delighted and laughed, and he said, ‘So that is the man I saw!’ Then he sat up, tidied himself and even before the day ended, though he did not realize it, he was better.
Chi Hsing Tzu was raising game birds for the King.
Ten days later he asked, ‘Are the game birds ready?’ ‘Not yet,’ said Chi Hsing Tzu, ‘I need to work on their arrogance and control their spirit.’
Ten days later the King asked again, and he said, ‘Not yet, they glare easily alarmed.’
Ten days later the King asked again, and he said, ‘Not yet, they glare about them and I need to control their spirit.’
Ten days later the King asked again and Chi Hsing Tzu told him, ‘Good enough. A cock nearby can crow and they are not disturbed: if you saw them from afar, you’d think they look like wood. They have harmonized their Virtue, and other cocks will not challenge them, but run away.’
Confucius was sightseeing in Lu Liang, where the waterfall is thirty fathoms high and the river races along for forty miles, so fast that neither fish nor any other creature can swim in it. He saw one person dive in and he assumed that this person wanted to embrace death, perhaps because of some anxiety, so he placed his followers along the bank and they prepared to pull him out. However, the swimmer, having gone a hundred yards, came out, and walked nonchalantly along the bank, singing a song with water dripping off him.
Confucius pursued him and said, ‘I thought you were a ghost, but now I see, Sir, that you are a man. I wish to enquire, do you have a Tao for swimming under the water?’
He said, ‘No, I have no Tao. I started with what I knew, matured my innate nature and allow destiny to do the rest. I go in with the currents and come out with the flow, just going with the Tao of the water and never being concerned. That is how I survive.’
Confucius said, ‘What do you mean when you say you started with what you knew, matured your innate nature and allow destiny to do the rest?’
He said, ‘I was born on the dry land and feel content on the land, where I know what I know. I was nurtured by the water, and felt safe there: that reflects my innate nature. I am not sure why I do this, but I am certain that this is destiny.’
Woodcarver Ching76 carved
