Teacher Le-tzu, after studying with the Forester from Bowl Mountain and making friends with the Darkening Eye, settled in the Southern Suburb. His followers settled right there. They did not have time to count them every day, and Le Tzu himself did not know how many there were, although every morning he debated with them, and this became known everywhere. Teacher Le Tzu lived for twenty years next to the Teacher of the Southern Suburbs, separated from him only by a fence. However, they did not visit or invite each other, meeting each other on the street as if they did not notice each other. The disciples and servants at the gate believed that there was enmity between Teacher Le Tzu and the Teacher of the Southern Suburbs.
A certain student asked teacher Le Tzu:
- Why are you, the Firstborn, and the Teacher of the Southern Suburbs alienated from each other?
- Why go to him? - answered teacher Le-tzu. “The face of the Teacher of the Southern Suburbs is full, but his heart is empty, his ears do not hear, his eyes do not see, his lips are silent, his heart does not know, his body does not move. And yet I will try to go and look at it with you.
Forty disciples went with them. They saw that the Southern Suburbs Teacher's face really looked like a monster's mask, and it was impossible to communicate with him. They turned to teacher Le-tzu and saw that his life energy had separated from his body, and he walked out of the crowd.
Suddenly, the Teacher of the Southern Suburbs pointed to the student Le-tzu in the last row and spoke to him joyfully, as if he was the most perfect and strongest. Le Tzu's disciples were surprised, and on the way back everyone's faces expressed doubt.
- Why be so surprised? - said Le Tzu. — He who has achieved what he wants is silent, and he who has exhausted his knowledge is also silent. Speech through silence is also speech, knowledge through ignorance is also knowledge. The absence of words and silence, the absence of knowledge and ignorance - this is also speech, this is also knowledge. This means that there is nothing that one talks about, there is nothing that one knows about; it also means that there is nothing to talk about, nothing to know. That's all.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru