‘How very perceptive of you!’ said Po Hun Wu Jen. ‘However, given who you are, people will still come to you!’
Shortly after this, Po Hun Wu Jen went to see Lieh Tzu’s home and found the doorway full of the shoes of his many visitors. Po Hun Wu Jen stood facing north, with his staff upright in his hand and his chin resting upon it, until his chin became creased. He stood there some time, then he went away without a word.
The porter at the gate went in to Lieh Tzu and told him about this. Lieh Tzu grabbed his shoes and ran barefooted after Po Hun Wu Jen, catching up with him at the outer gate, where he said, ‘Sire, having come here, are you now going to go away without giving me some medicine?’
‘It is pointless,’ he replied. ‘I said to you that people would crowd round you, and so they have. It is not your fault that they come, but you cannot keep them away, so what use was my warning? It is the way your extraordinary attributes shine forth which attracts people to you and makes them happy. But if you so move others, this in turn disturbs you to the very roots of your being. But there is nothing more to be said about this. The sort of people who gather round you will never tell you this. The silly words they speak actually poison a person. There is no comprehension and no conception of this among them, so who can make this clear to you? The clever person labours on and the wise person is distressed. However, someone without skills looks for nothing. He eats what he wants and wanders around, drifting like an empty boat, aimlessly, vacuously.’
A man of Cheng called Huan studied texts at a place called Chiu Shih. After three years Huan had become one of the Literati and just as the Yellow River spreads its blessing over nine miles on either side, so did he bestow blessings upon the three levels of his family relations. He helped his younger brother study the teachings of Mo, and he and his brother debated, though his father always took the brother’s side. Ten years later Huan committed suicide. He appeared to his father in a dream saying, ‘It was I who had your son trained as a Mohist. Why don’t you acknowledge this by taking a look at my grave where I have become the berries on the cypress?’
When Creation blesses someone, it blesses not that which is human in the person, but that which is from Heaven. In the same way was Huan’s brother guided to be a Mohist. When Huan thought he was the one who made his brother a Mohist, he despised his own family and was like the people of Chi who try to prevent others from also drinking from the well. It is said that nowadays, in this generation, we have only people like Huan. They act as if only they are right.
However, note that people who have Virtue do not even know this, and imagine how much more this is true of those who have the Tao! In the past people like Huan were known as those who have escaped Heaven’s retribution.
The sage rests where there is true rest and does not rest when there is no real rest. The bulk of humanity rests when there is no real rest and does not know how to truly rest.
Chuang Tzu said, ‘To know the Tao is easy, not to speak about it is hard. Knowing and not saying, this is to aspire to the Heavenly. Knowing and saying, this is to be subject to the human element. In the past people paid attention to the Heavenly, not to the human.’
Chu Ping Man studied how to slay the dragons120 under Cripple Yi and it cost a thousand pieces of gold, which was all his family had. Three years later he had mastered the art but he could never use it.
The sage sees what is thought to be necessary as unnecessary, so there is no call for warfare. The ordinary person sees what is not necessary as necessary, with the result that there is frequent warfare. The one who looks to warfare always resorts to it in any situation. But relying upon warfare leads to destruction.
The comprehension of the petty person does not go beyond the external wrappings and the ephemera of gifts, business cards and letterheads. He exhausts his spirit on that which is insignificant and vacuous, but wants to be seen as leading others to the Tao and as bringing all things into the great Oneness. Someone like this will most certainly get lost in time and space. His body is trapped and can never know the great beginning. The perfect man, in contrast, concentrates his spirit upon that which was before the beginning and rests in the strangeness of being in the fields of nothingness. Like water he flows without form, or pours out into the great purity. How pathetic you are! Those of you whose understanding is no greater than the tip of a hair, and who do not understand the great peacefulness!
A man from Sung, called Tsao Shang, was sent by the King of Sung as an ambassador to the state of Chin. When he left Sung he was given only a few carriages. However, the King of Chin was so delighted with him that he gave him a hundred more. On returning to Sung he met Chuang Tzu and said, ‘Living in poor streets of an impoverished village, making sandals and starving, with a shrivelled neck and a sickly face, this I cannot stand! But being in the confidence of a ruler of ten thousand chariots and being
