Tao Qian

“ What boots it to wear out the soul with anxious thoughts? I want not wealth; I want not power; heaven is beyond my hopes. Then let me stroll through the bright hours as they pass, in my garden among my flowers; or I will mount the hill and sing my song, or weave my verse beside the limpid brook. Thus will I work out my allotted span, content with the appointments of Fate, my spirit free from care.”
The “Peach-blossom Fountain” of Tao Ch‘ien is a well-known and charming allegory, a form of literature much cultivated by Chinese writers. ”

“ Hot people thinking of last winter's icy blast!
"The prince of Ch'u is dignified and severe. In punishing, he is merciless as a tiger. Only a very practised or a very perfect man could influence him.
"The true Sage, when in obscurity, causes those around him to forget their poverty. When in power, he causes princes to forget ranks and emoluments, and to become as though of low estate. He rejoices exceedingly in all creation. He exults to see Tao diffused among his fellow-men, while suffering no loss himself.
Tao is a constant quantity. It can be shared, but cannot be divided. ”

“ He travels like the bird, leaving no trace behind. If there be Tao in the empire, he and all things are in harmony. If there be not Tao, he cultivates virtue in retirement. After a thousand years of this weary world, he mounts aloft, and riding upon the white clouds passes into the kingdom of God, whither the three evils do not reach, and where he rests secure in eternity. ”

“ Thus it may be said that the world destroys Tao, and that Tao destroys the world. And the world and Tao thus mutually destroying each other, how can the men of Tao elevate the world, and how can the world elevate Tao? Tao cannot elevate the world; neither can the world elevate Tao. Though the Sages were not to dwell on mountain and in forest, their virtue would still be hidden;—hidden, but not by themselves.
Those of old who were called retired scholars, were not men who hid their bodies, or kept back their words, or concealed their wisdom. ”

“ To be public-spirited and belong to no party, in one's dealings not to be all for self, to move without being bound to a given course, to take things as they come, to have no remorse for the past, no anxiety for the future, to have no partialities, but to be on good terms with all,—herein lay the Tao of the ancients.
P'êng Mêng, T'ien P'ien, and Shên Tao, became enthusiastic followers of Tao. Their criterion was the identity of all things. "The sky," said they, "can cover but cannot support us. The earth can support but cannot cover us. ”

“ I would test my knowledge in this sense, that perchance I may do some good to that State."
"Alas!" cried Confucius, "you will only succeed in bringing evil upon yourself. For Tao must not be distributed. If it is, it will lose its unity. If it loses its unity, it will be uncertain; and so cause mental disturbance,—from which there is no escape.
"The sages of old first got Tao for themselves, and then got it for others. Before you possess this yourself, what leisure have you to attend to the doings of wicked men? Besides, do you know what Virtue results in and where Wisdom ends? ”

“ Confucius said to Lao Tzŭ, "To-day you are at leisure. Pray tell me about perfect Tao."
"Purge your heart by fasting and discipline," answered Lao Tzŭ. "Wash your soul as white as snow. Discard your knowledge. Tao is abstruse and difficult of discussion. I will try, however, to speak to you of its outline.
"Light is born of darkness. Classification is born of formlessness. The soul is born of Tao. The body is born of the vital essence.
Existence springs from non-existence. "Thus all things produce after their kind. Creatures with nine channels of communication are born from the womb. ”

“ The Master said, "How profound in its repose, how infinite in its purity, is Tao!
"If metal and stone were without Tao, they would not be capable of emitting sound. And just as they possess the property of sound but will not emit sound unless struck, so surely is the same principle applicable to all creation.
Meaning that all creation is responsive to proper influences, in accordance with Tao, if we only knew where to seek them.
"The man of complete virtue remains blankly passive as regards what goes on around him. He is as originally by nature, and his knowledge extends to the supernatural. ”

“ It is about as difficult to apprehend Tao apart from fatalism as the omniscience of God apart from predestination.
Passivity was his guiding principle. "For," said he, "we can only know that we know nothing, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
"Take any worthless fellow who laughs at mankind for holding virtue in esteem, any unprincipled vagabond who reviles the great Sages of the world, and subject him to torture. In his agony he will sacrifice positive and negative alike. If he can but get free, he will trouble no more about knowledge [446] and forethought. ”

“ It is not according to the spirit of Tao that a man should shirk his mortal responsibilities. On the contrary, Tao teaches him how to meet them. By means of inaction he will be able to adapt himself to the natural conditions of existence. And so it is that he who respects the State as his own body is fit to support it, and he who loves the State as his own body, is fit to govern it.
This last sentence is attributed by Huai Nan Tzŭ to Lao Tzŭ, and has been incorporated in the Tao-Tê-Ching, ch. ”

“ This the dead level of ordinary mortality, still within the operation of Tao.
Thus far-reaching was the extension of Tao among the ancients.
The companion of the gods, the purifier of the universe, it nourishes all creation, it unites the empire, it benefits the masses. Illuminating the fundamental, it is bound up with the accessory, reaching to all points of the compass and to the opposite extremes of magnitude. There is indeed nowhere where it is not! ”

“ Tao is the most mysterious force in the world; it surrounds and pervades all things; it contains the visible universe and everything that we call reality. He who apprehends the mysteries of Tao sees clearly all that was and will be."
"Rubbish!" I retorted.
"Tao resembles a great animal, recumbent, motionless, containing in its enormous body all the worlds of our universe, the past, the present and the future. We see portions of this great monster through a slit, which we call time. With the aid of this drug I shall enlarge the slit. ”

“ Any Tao?—in its earlier sense of way of doing things. "It is concentration," replied the man. "When twenty years old, I took to forging swords. I cared for nothing else. If a thing was not a sword, I did not notice it. I availed myself of whatever energy I did not use in other directions in order to secure greater efficiency in the direction required. Still more of that which is never without use;—
Tao. So that there was nothing which did not lend its aid.
Jen Ch'iu asked Confucius, saying, "Can we know about the time before the universe existed?"
"We can," replied Confucius. ”

“ He was a man of no ambition, content to earn a few cash by selling pea-nuts and spend his life in a philosophical melancholy. As he sat tapping the tin with an elongated finger-nail and droning out a mournful eulogy of his wares, To Tao, the hunchback, passed.
To Tao by his infirmity was unfitted for heavy manual labour, but his distorted body seemed to be endowed with some marvellous power of rendering natural objects equally grotesque. No one for hundreds of li around could produce small trees in such fantastic shapes and weird eccentricities of growth as he. ”

“ The various schools diverge never to meet again; and posterity is debarred from viewing the original purity of the universe and the grandeur of the ancients. For the system of Tao is scattered in fragments over the face of the earth.
Not to covet posthumous fame, nor to aim at dazzling the world, nor to pose as a benefactor of mankind, but to be a strict self-disciplinarian while lenient to the faults of others,—herein lay the Tao of the ancients. ”

“ Those of old who preserved themselves, did not ornament their knowledge with rhetoric. They did not exhaust the empire with their knowledge. They did not exhaust virtue. They kept quietly to their own spheres, and reverted to their natural instincts. What then was left for them to do?
Tao does not deal with detail. Virtue does not take cognizance of trifles. Trifles injure virtue; detail injures Tao. Wherefore it has been said, "Self-reformation is enough." He whose happiness is complete has attained his desire. ”

“ Splendid temples were erected to him, and he was worshiped as a god. His disciples were called "Heavenly Teachers." They inculcated great tenderness toward animals, and considered strict celibacy necessary for the attainment of perfect holiness. Lao-kiun believed in One God whom he called Tao, and the sect which he formed is called Tao-tse, or "Sect of Reason." Sir Thomas Thornton, speaking of him, says:
"The mythological history of this 'prince of the doctrine of the Taou,' which is current amongst his followers, represents him as a divine emanation incarnate in a human form. ”

“ And, perhaps, when you have found Him, you will also have found your tao, fool!"
"I shall try," had come Li Ping-Yeng's reply. "Yes; most decidedly shall I try." He had walked to the door. There he had turned. "Little brother," he had said to the priest over his shoulder, without malice or hurt or bitterness, "and why should I not find Him even in the Pell Street gutters? Why should I not find my tao even in the stinking, rotten heaven that vaults above Pell Street? Tell me. Is not my soul still my soul? Is not the diamond still a diamond, even after it has fallen into the dung-heap?" ”

“ Tao is attained, not by knowledge, but by absence of knowledge.
When All-in-extremes heard of this, he considered that the Yellow Emperor had spoken well.
"Spoken knowingly" gives the only chance of bringing out what is here a forced play upon words.
The universe is very beautiful, yet it says nothing. The four seasons abide by a fixed law, yet they are not heard. All creation is based upon absolute principles, yet nothing speaks.
And the true Sage, taking his stand upon the beauty of the universe, pierces the principles of created things. ”

“ Likewise, if we are not conscious of the existence of spirits as such, we must be equally unconscious of the existence of inspired teachers as such; and to be unconscious of the existence of spirits and of inspired teachers is the very essence of Tao."
Adumbrations of Heracleitus.—In the hands of Lao Tzu's more immediate followers, Tao became the Absolute, the First Cause, and finally One in whose obliterating unity all seemingly opposed conditions of time and space were indistinguishably blended. This One, the source of human life, was placed beyond the limits of our visible universe ”

“ The Name which can be named (i.e., used on human lips and which is an interpretation of the eternal Law) is not the everlasting Name. The Nameless One is the beginning of the heavens and the earth; the Nameable One is the mother of the material world."
These and other expressions cannot but attract the Christian and should command his appreciation. Though the Tao of Lao-tse does not have the same meaning as the Logos of John, also translated into Chinese as Tao, yet this two-fold aspect of Tao or Law in the Taoist classic is like the twofold aspect of God as taught by the apostle John. ”

“ Lao Tzŭ said, "Tao is not too small for the greatest, nor too great for the smallest. Thus all things are embosomed therein; wide indeed its boundless capacity, unfathomable its depth.
"Form, and virtue, and charity, and duty to one's neighbour, these are the accidentals of the spiritual. Except he be a perfect man, who shall determine their place? The world of the perfect man, is not that vast? And yet it is not able to involve him in trouble. All struggle for power, but he does not join. Though discovering nothing false, he is not tempted astray. ”

“ This branch consists of the literature of Taoism, or that which has gathered around what is known as the Tao or Way of Lao Tzŭ, growing and flourishing alongside of, though in direct antagonism to, that which is founded upon the criteria and doctrines of Confucius. Unfortunately it is quite impossible to explain at the outset in what this Tao actually consists. According to Lao Tzŭ himself, "Those who know do not tell; those who tell do not know." ”

“ From the position of your various features I now judge you to be Tao, only son of the virtuous house of Chang. May you prove more successful in your enterprise than those who have preceded you.”
“The adventure appears to be tending in unforeseen directions,” said Chang Tao uneasily. “Your felicitation, benign, though doubtless gold at heart, is set in a doubtful frame.”
“It is for your stalwart endeavour to assure a happy picture,” replied Shen Yi, with undisturbed cordiality. “You bear a sword.” ”

“ Scholars who wear square shoes know the shape of Earth.
According to ancient Chinese cosmogony, "Heaven is round: Earth is square."
And scholars who loosely gird themselves are ready to decide whatever questions may arise. But scholars who have Tao do not necessarily wear robes; neither does the wearing of robes necessarily mean that a scholar has Tao. If your Highness does not think so, why not issue an order through the Middle Kingdom, making death the punishment for all who wear the robes without having the Tao?" ”