Sacred Books of the East Vol. 40 - Taoism Vol. 2

'We speak of fulness and emptiness; of withering and decay. It produces fulness and emptiness, but is neither fulness nor emptiness; it produces withering and decay, but is neither withering nor decay. It produces the root and branches, but is neither root nor branch; it produces accumulation and dispersion, but is itself neither accumulated nor dispersed.' 7. A-ho Kan{fr. 2} and Shän Näng studied together {fn. 1. The meaning of this other illustration is also very obscure to me; and much of what follows to the end of the paragraph.} {fn. 2. We can hardly be said to know anything more of the first and third of these men than what is mentioned here.} {p. 68} under Läo-lung Kî. Shän Näng{fr. 1} was leaning forward on his stool, having shut the door and gone to sleep in the day time. At midday A-ho Kan pushed open the door and entered, saying, 'Lâo-lung is dead.' Shän Näng leant forward on his stool, laid hold of his staff and rose. Then he laid the staff aside with a clash, laughed and said, ‘That Heaven knew how cramped and mean, how arrogant and assuming I was, and therefore he has cast me off, and is dead. Now that there is no Master to correct my heedless words, it is simply for me to die!' Yen Kang, (who had come in) to condole, heard these words, and said, 'It is to him who embodies the Tâo that the superior men everywhere cling. Now you who do not understand so much as the tip of an autumn hair of it, not even the ten-thousandth part of the Tâo, still know how to keep hidden your heedless words about it and die;--how much more might he who embodied the Tâo do so! We look for it, and there is no form; we hearken for it, and there is no sound. When men try to discuss it, we call them dark indeed. When they discuss the Tâo, they misrepresent it.'