Toothless asked Wang Ni:
- Do you know in what ways things are similar to each other?
- How can I know this? - Wang Ni replied.
- Do you know something that you don’t know?
- How can I know this?
- So no one knows anything?
- How can I know this? However, I’ll try to explain: how do you know that something I call knowledge is not ignorance? And how do you know that what I call ignorance is not actually knowledge? Let me ask now: if a person spends the night on damp ground, his lower back will hurt and half his body will be taken away. But will this happen to an elk? If a person lives in a tree, he will constantly tremble with fear, but is this how a monkey will feel? Which of these three knows where it is better to live? People eat the meat of domestic animals, deer eat grass, centipedes feast on worms, and owls hunt mice. Which of these four knows the true taste of food? Monkeys mate with monkeys, deer make friends with moose, eels play with fish. Mao Qiang and Lady Li were known as the first beauties among people, but the fish, seeing them, would immediately swim into the depths, and the birds, seeing them, would fly into the sky. And if the deer saw them, they would run away in fright into the forest. Who among them knows what true beauty is? In my understanding, the rules of good behavior, judgments about truth and lies are confused and unclear. I can't figure them out.
Toothless asked:
- If you cannot distinguish benefit from harm, then a perfect person undoubtedly knows this difference, doesn’t he?
Wang Ni replied:
- A perfect person lives spiritually! Even if the great swamps caught fire, he would not feel the heat. Even if the great rivers freeze, he will not be cold. Even if lightning splits great mountains, hurricanes raise waves on the sea to the very sky, he will not succumb to fear. Such a person travels with clouds and fogs, rides on the sun and moon, and is carried away in his wanderings beyond the four seas. Neither life nor death changes anything in him, much less thoughts about benefit and harm.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru