‘in service of parents, it is affection and filial piety;
in service of rulers, it is loyalty and integrity;
in celebrations, it is enjoyable pleasures;
in conducting the mourning rituals, it is sadness and grief.
‘For in loyalty and integrity, service is all-important; in celebration, enjoyment is all-important; in mourning, grief is all-important; in service of parents, making them content is all-important.
‘The splendour of service doesn’t mean just doing the same thing every time. When making your parents content, you don’t worry about what to do. In getting jolly at a festival, you don’t get worked up about the crockery. In mourning at times of death, you don’t get het up over the precision of the rituals. Rituals have emerged from the common needs of the ordinary people. Truth itself comes to us from Heaven: this is how it is and it never changes. So the sage models himself upon Heaven, values truth but does not kowtow to convention. The fool does the opposite. He cannot take his model from Heaven and so is swayed by the mundane. He simply doesn’t know the value of truth, but is under the domination of the ordinary people and so is affected by this common crowd and is never at peace. Sadly for you, Sir, you started early in such nonsense and have only recently heard of the great Tao!’
Confucius yet again bowed twice, stood up and said, ‘Now that I have had the opportunity to meet you, I feel as if I have been blessed by Heaven. Master, if you wouldn’t be embarrassed by this, will you allow me to join those who serve you and to be taught by you, and therefore tell me where I might find your house? I want to go there to hear your teachings from you and to complete my study of the great Tao.’
The stranger replied, ‘I have heard it said that if you find someone with whom you can walk, then go with him to the deepest mysteries of the Tao. However, if it is someone you cannot walk with, and he doesn’t know the Tao, do not link yourself with him, and then you cannot be blamed. Do what you must, Sir! I will now depart from you, Sir, I will depart from you!’ With this he pushed off with his pole and went away through the reeds.
Yen Yuan returned with the carriage and Tzu Lu held out the strap for Confucius to pull himself up and in, but Confucius did not look their way. He waited till the last ripples had died away and he could no longer hear the sound of the pole and then he returned and climbed into his seat.
‘I have been your servant for many years, Master,’ said Tzu Lu, running alongside the carriage, ‘but I have never before seen you behave with such awe towards another. The rulers of ten thousand chariots, of a thousand chariots, when they see you, Sir, they never put you in another room or treat you with anything less than the respect due to an equal, while you yourself always conduct yourself with an air of rigid politeness. Now this old fisherman stood tall before you with his pole, while you bent double like a musical chime bar, and you always bowed twice before speaking to him. Wasn’t this going a bit too far? We are all wondering about this. Why did this fisherman command such respect from you?’
Confucius leaned upon the crossbar of his carriage, sighed and said, ‘Oh, Yu, it’s very hard to change you! You have studied ritual and order for so long, yet your base and mean heart has not yet been changed. Come here and I will explain! If you meet someone who is older than you and are not respectful, then this is a failure of etiquette. If you meet a worthy person and fail to offer respect, this is a lack of benevolence. If the fisherman was not a perfect man, he would not have the power to make others humble before him. If people do not humble themselves before him, they are lacking in sincerity and thus are unable to obtain the truth, so they harm themselves. Sadly, there is nothing worse that can befall us than the lack of such benevolence, but you alone, O Yu, risk such a calamity!
‘Furthermore, the Tao is that by which all the forms of life have life. All that lose it die. All that obtain it live. To struggle against it in practice is to face ruin. To flow with it is to succeed. So it is that where the Tao is, the sage will honour it. Now the old fisherman most certainly has the Tao, so how could I risk not showing respect to him?’
CHAPTER 32
Lieh Yu Kou
Lieh Yu Kou119 was on his way to Chi but he returned before he got halfway down the road. He encountered Po Hun Wu Jen, who said, ‘Why have you come back?’
‘I was frightened.’
‘What scared you?’
‘I went into ten soup shops en route,’ said Lieh Yu Kou, ‘and in five of them I was served before anyone else.’
‘Really? But what exactly alarmed you?’ said Po Hun Wu Jen.
‘Even if you try to hide the inner true nature of someone, the body gives it away like a traitor and shines out. Once this is external, it overpowers the hearts of people and makes them treat you, for petty reasons, like someone who is a noble or venerable. From such actions all sorts of problems arise. Now, soup sellers don’t make much in the way of profit and have only their soup to sell. If such people, with so little to offer and so little power, treat me thus, imagine what would happen were I to meet the lord of ten thousand
