When Yan Hui left for the eastern kingdom of Qi, Confucius became sad. Another of his students, Tzu-Gong, asked:
“Why have you been so sad since Hui left for Qi?”
- You asked a good question! - Confucius answered. “I once heard the following words: “You can’t put a big thing in a small bag.” You can’t get anything from the depths with a short rope.” This means that each of us is destined to accomplish as much as we can in the world - and no more. I am afraid that Hui will begin to talk with the sovereign of Qi about the path of Tao and refer to the words of the wise rulers of antiquity. The sovereign will begin to look for in himself what is not in him. Not finding what he is looking for, he will become confused. And if the person you serve as an adviser is at a loss, you face imminent death.
Have you ever heard the story of how a seabird flew into the vicinity of the capital city of Lu? On this occasion, Ruler Lu arranged a feast at the altars of his ancestors, performed sacred melodies, and presented the best meat from the sacrifice to the bird. And the bird sat with its eyes wide open, and did not eat a single piece of meat or drink a sip of water. Three days later she died.
This happened because Lord Lu actually cared about himself, and not about the bird. Anyone who really wanted to do good to the bird would set it free in dense forests, allow it to swim on lakes and rivers, feed it with aquatic life, and let it live the way it wants. For that bird there was nothing more hateful than hearing human voices - after all, they seemed to her a meaningless hubbub! Try to play sacred melodies in the vastness of a forest lake, and birds, hearing this music, will fly into the sky, animals will run away into the forest, fish will go into the depths. People, on the contrary, will gather to listen.
A fish, being in the water, lives for its own pleasure, and a person, falling under the water, dies. They are so different from each other because they have completely different needs. This is why the ancient sages did not think that people had the same abilities and did not give people the same tasks. In those days, names depended on circumstances; what was due was determined by what was possible.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru