Ai-kung, the ruler of Lu, said to Confucius:
— In the kingdom of Wei there lived one freak, whose name was Freak To. The young people who came to him revered him so highly that they could not bring themselves to leave his house. The girls who happened to see him told their father and mother that they would rather become his concubines than become the wife of someone else. And there were dozens of them. No one ever heard him say anything that no one knew. He always just agreed with others - and nothing more. He had neither the sovereign power that would allow him to save people from death, nor the enormous wealth that would give people prosperity. This is the kind of man he was: his appearance was so ugly that he could frighten anyone, in a conversation he was always ready to agree with everyone and did not say anything on his own, in his knowledge he was completely ordinary. And yet, wild animals mated where his foot stepped. No, he was definitely an extraordinary person! I invited him over to take a good look at him, and saw that he really was so ugly that he could scare anyone. He remained in my retinue, and less than a month passed before I began to take a serious look at him. And a year later he enjoyed my complete trust. When my state was left without a first adviser, I appointed him to this position. He accepted the appointment after much deliberation and thanked me discreetly, as if he were rejecting my offer. He was so strange! He eventually took over the reins, but soon left my court. I was so sad, as if I had buried a loved one, and there was no one left next to me with whom I could share the joy of owning an entire kingdom. What kind of person was he?
“I’ll tell you a story from my life,” Confucius answered. “Once I was sent on an errand to the kingdom of Chu and saw how little piglets tried to suckle their dead mother. Very soon they left her and scattered in all directions. This happened because they did not recognize themselves in the dead mother, did not see in her a being of the same kind. In their mother, they loved not just her body, but what made this body animate. Warriors killed in battle do not require luxurious coffins. A man who has had both his legs cut off as punishment will be willing to lend you shoes. For they have all already lost what made them important in this world. When a girl enters the chambers of the Son of Heaven, her nails are not cut off and her ears are not pierced. The one who takes a new wife does not come to the court of the sovereign and does not carry out official assignments. If we care so much about the safety of our body, all the more should we care about preserving our vital properties! Well, Freak That inspires confidence in himself before he utters a word, gains the favor of others without providing them any services, induces the ruler to entrust an entire kingdom to his care, and, moreover, makes the sovereign ruler fear that he will not accept his offer. There is no doubt that he is one of those in whom talent has no flaw, but his vital qualities are not fully embodied in his physical appearance.
- What does it mean: “talent has no flaw”? - asked Ai-gun.
Confucius replied:
- Life and death, existence and death, victory and defeat, wealth and poverty, wisdom and ignorance, praise and blasphemy, hunger and thirst, heat and cold - all these are transformations of things, the action of fate. Day and night these transformations take place before our eyes, and our knowledge is not enough to understand their source. Therefore, they cannot add anything to the spiritual harmony in us, and they have no place in the Magic Pantry (enlightened consciousness). To always carry this agreement in your soul, and, devoting yourself to worldly affairs, to remain faithful to your joyful truth, not to separate day from night and to live in the same spring with all that exists, means to be a person in whom every impression responds in the heart with the movement of the universe. This is what I call “talent has no flaw.”
- What does it mean: “life properties are not fully embodied in the physical form”?
- To be positioned strictly according to level - this is the property of resting water. If water can serve as a model here, it is only because inside it is left to itself and does not look for itself outside. The completeness of properties is the pinnacle of our improvement in life harmony. Nothing existing in this world can depart from the fullness of properties, even if not fully manifested in bodily form.
The next day Ai Kung said to Min Tzu:
- At first, I ruled the kingdom as befits a sovereign ruler: I held the reins of government in my hands, grieved over the suffering and deaths of people and thought that I had achieved perfection. And now I heard the speeches of a truly wise man and realized that I had been frivolous with myself and had endangered my own state. Confucius and I are not ruler and subject, but friends in spiritual achievements - that’s who we are!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru