The huge Kun fish lives in the Northern Ocean. She can turn into a Peng bird, whose back is longer than a mountain range. When she rises up and flies, her wings cover the Sky from edge to edge.
The ancient “Book of Miracles” says this: “When the bird Peng flies into the Southern Ocean, the water around it boils three thousand li deep, and the waves rise up ninety thousand li. That bird rests once every six moons.”
Dust flying up from under the hooves of wild horses - such is the life that fills all creatures on earth. Is the blue of the sky its true color? Or is it because the sky is unattainably far from us? And if we look down from there, then, that’s right, we will see the same thing.
Large ships will not be able to navigate through shallow waters. If you pour a cup of water into a hole on the floor, a mustard seed will float there like a ship. And if you put a cup there, it will turn out that there is too little water and the ship is too big.
The same is true for the wind: if the wind is weak, it will not support large wings in flight. The Peng bird can fly ninety thousand li only because its wings are carried by a mighty whirlwind. And she can fly to the Southern Ocean only because she soars into the skies, not knowing any obstacles.
As she flew like this, the cicada and the turtle dove saw her and said:
“How strange: we can easily fly up onto an elm branch, but sometimes we don’t reach it and fall to the ground again.” Is it conceivable to fly as much as ninety thousand li to the south?!
Then the quail laughed from the swamp:
-Where is it taking her? So I jump up a couple of elbows and return to the ground. So I flutter in the bushes, and I don’t need anything more. And where is this bird going?
This is the difference between small and great.
Those who go for a walk outside the city stop three times to have a snack and return home well-fed. Those who travel a hundred miles from home take with them as much food as they can carry. And whoever goes a thousand miles takes food for three months.
But how can small creatures understand this? With little knowledge one cannot comprehend great knowledge, and a short age cannot be compared with a long age.
But how do we understand this? A mushroom that appears in the morning and dies in the evening does not know what the rising and setting of the moon are. A cicada lives for one summer, and there is no need to know what spring and autumn mean. This is the difference between big and small. That is why the man who rules the village and imagines himself to be a great king is like these small creatures.
But this is not the case with Song Rong Tzu, the teacher of simple living. He would laugh at them and at us. Yes, even if the whole world praised him, he still wouldn’t be proud. And if the whole world began to scold him, he would not consider himself disgraced. He understood the difference between internal and external; he knew where glory was and where shame was. That's the kind of man he was! No, he did not try to please worldly morals. And yet even he has not established himself as firmly as a tree stands in the ground.
Lieh Tzu perfectly mastered six types of energy that direct the cycle of Heaven and Earth - the forces of Yin and Yang, wind and rain, light and darkness. He spent fifteen days traveling and did not think at all about his own well-being. But although he could fly on the six winds, he still could not do without support. But if he could ride the truth of Heaven and Earth, rule all the changes of the universe and wander in the infinite, he would not need any support.
Therefore they say: “A wise man has nothing of his own. The divine man has no merit. The spiritual man has no name."
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru