The Simple Way, Part 53

The Simple Way
The Life & Teachings of Zhouzi
by Scott Bradley

When an elder monk, a dear friend of Zhouzi, fell dead in the garden with a hoe in his hand, Zhouzi wept bitterly in the presence of all. And when an elder heard among some novices rumblings of dismay, he confronted them crossly and demanded to know the cause.

“Have we not come here to transcend the passions of men?” said one. “Yet now our Master weeps bitterly when Nature takes its course.”

“What teaching have you heard here,” exclaimed the elder, “that would have you be other than men? To be free of the passions is to be able to express them passionately. It is the Master’s joy to weep bitterly at the loss of his friend. What a utopian dream you would make of the world! Have you not learned the first lesson of the Simple Way? Speak, I would hear it from your lips!”

“It is that Reality is perfection and only just this,” replied one.

“And what in this instance is ‘this’?” asked the elder.

“That a friend has died and the Master weeps in his grief,” answered another.

“And that you would impose some silly perception of a right and a wrong upon it,” concluded the elder with an exaggerated stony stare.

“It is just as you say!” replied the first, while they all laughed.

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