Confucius met Lao Tzu. He had just washed himself and, having let his hair down, was drying it, motionless, as if not a person. Confucius waited for the right moment and soon, when Lao Tzu noticed him, said:
“Am I blinded, Qiu?” Should you believe your eyes? Just now, you, the First Born, with your bodily form resembled a dry tree, as if you had left all things, abandoned people and risen as the only one.
“I wandered with my heart in the beginning of things,” answered Lao Tzu.
- What does this mean? - asked Confucius.
“My heart is tired, I can’t understand, my lips are closed, I can’t speak.” But I'll try to tell you about it now. At its extreme, cold freezes; at its extreme, heat burns. The cold goes into the sky, the heat moves to the ground. Both forces, mutually penetrating each other, unite, and all things are born. Something created this order, but no one saw its bodily form. Decrease and increase, filling and emptying, heat and cold, changes in the sun and moon - every day something happens, but the results are imperceptible. In life there is generation, in death there is return, beginnings and ends are opposite to each other, but have no beginning, and when they will end is unknown. If this is not so, then who was the ancestor, the source of all this?
- May I ask, what does such a journey mean? - Confucius asked a question.
“To find such a journey is the most beautiful, the highest pleasure.” “The one who has found the most beautiful, who wanders in the highest pleasure, I will call a real person,” answered Lao Tzu.
- Would you like to know how to travel? - asked Confucius.
— Herbivores do not suffer from changes in pasture. Creatures born in the river do not suffer from changes in water. With small changes they do not lose their main, constant. Do not allow joy, anger, sadness, or fun into your chest. Indeed, in the Celestial Empire, all the darkness of things exists in unity. If you find this unity, you will become equal with everyone, then you will consider your arms and legs and a hundred parts of your body to be dust, and you will regard the end and the beginning, death and life, as the change of day and night. Nothing will bring you into confusion, least of all gain or loss, misfortune or happiness. You throw away your rank, as if you were shaking off dirt, realizing that life is more valuable than rank. The value is in itself, and is not lost with changes. Moreover, the darkness of changes will never come to an end, and will anything turn out to be worthy of sorrow? This is understood by those who have surrendered to the path!
“In virtue, teacher, you are equal to Heaven and Earth,” said Confucius. - Still, I will borrow your true words to improve my heart. Could any of the ancient noble men have avoided this?
“That’s not true,” replied Lao Tzu. - After all, it happens that water flows in spring, but it does not act, this ability is natural. These are the properties of a real person. He does not improve, and things cannot leave him. Why improve if properties are inherent in it in the same way as height is inherent in the sky, thickness is inherent in the earth, light is inherent in the sun and moon.
Coming out of Lao Tzu, Confucius told everything to Yan Yuan and said:
“I, Qiu, in knowing the path, am like a worm in a jar of vinegar.” If the teacher had not lifted the lid, I would not have learned about the great integrity of heaven and earth.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru