Book VI (part 6)

There is the great Mass (of nature);--I find the support of my body in it; my life is spent in toil on it; my old age seeks ease on it; at death I find rest on it:--what has made my life a good will make my death also a good. 'Here now is a great founder, casting his metal. If the metal were to leap up (in the pot), and say, "I must be made into a (sword like the) Mo-yeh 3 ." p. 250 the great founder would be sure to regard it as uncanny. So, again, when a form is being fashioned in the mould of the womb, if it were to say, "I must become a man; I must become a man," the Creator would be sure to regard it as uncanny. When we once understand that heaven and earth are a great melting-pot, and the Creator a great founder, where can we have to go to that shall not be right for us? We are born as from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awaking.' 11. Dze-sang Hû 1 , Mäng Dze-fan 1 , and Dze-khin Kang 1 , these three men, were friends together. (One of them said), 'Who can associate together without any (thought of) such association, or act together without any (evidence of) such co-operation? Who can mount up into the sky and enjoy himself amidst the mists, disporting beyond the utmost limits (of things) 2 , and forgetting all others as if this were living, and would have no end?' The three men looked at one another and laughed, not perceiving the drift of the questions; and they continued to associate together as friends. Suddenly, after a time 3 , Dze-sang Hia died. Before he was buried, Confucius heard of the event, and p. 251 sent Dze-kung to go and see if he could render any assistance. One of the survivors had composed a ditty, and the other was playing on his lute. Then they sang together in unison, 'Ah! come, Sang Hû ah! come, Sang Hû! Your being true you've got again, While we, as men, still here remain Ohone 1 !' Dze-kung hastened forward to them, and said, 'I venture to ask whether it be according to the rules to be singing thus in the presence of the corpse?' The two men looked at each other, and laughed, saying, 'What does this man know about the idea that underlies (our) rules?' Dze-kung returned to Confucius, and reported to him, saying, 'What sort of men are those? They had made none of the usual preparations 2 , and treated the body as a thing foreign to them. They were singing in the presence of the corpse, and there was no change in their countenances. I cannot describe them;--what sort of men are they?' Confucius replied, 'Those men occupy and enjoy themselves in what is outside the (common) ways (of the world), while I occupy and enjoy myself in what lies within those ways. There is no common ground for those of such different ways; and when 1 sent you to condole with those men, I was acting stupidly. They, moreover, make man to be the fellow of the p. 252 Creator, and seek their enjoyment in the formless condition of heaven and earth. They consider life to be an appendage attached, an excrescence annexed to them, and death to be a separation of the appendage and a dispersion of the contents of the excrescence.