Bit by Bit - Chapter 1, Part 10

Trey Smith

Chien Wu said to Lien Shu, "I was listening to Chieh Yu's talk - big and nothing to back it up, going on and on without turning around. I was completely dumbfounded at his words - no more end than the Milky Way, wild and wide of the mark, never coming near human affairs!"

"What were his words like?" asked Lien Shu.

"He said that there is a Holy Man living on faraway Ku-she Mountain, with skin like ice or snow, and gentle and shy like a young girl. He doesn't eat the five grains, but sucks the wind, drinks the dew, climbs up on the clouds and mist, rides a flying dragon, and wanders beyond the four seas. By concentrating his spirit, he can protect creatures from sickness and plague and make the harvest plentiful. I thought this was all insane and refused to believe it."

"You would!" said Lien Shu. "We can't expect a blind man to appreciate beautiful patterns or a deaf man to listen to bells and drums. And blindness and deafness are not confined to the body alone - the understanding has them too, as your words just now have shown. This man, with this virtue of his, is about to embrace the ten thousand things and roll them into one. Though the age calls for reform, why should he wear himself out over the affairs of the world? There is nothing that can harm this man. Though flood waters pile up to the sky, he will not drown. Though a great drought melts metal and stone and scorches the earth and hills, he will not be burned.

"From his dust and leavings alone you could mold a Yao or a Shun! Why should he consent to bother about mere things?".
~ Burton Watson translation ~

If someone could tell us succinctly about the inner workings of the Grand Mystery, who would believe it?  We would think that such a person was off their nut!   Most of us would call the authorities to have this "crazy" person locked up in the loony bin.

I sometimes wonder if the really crazy people around us are the most sane and it's the rest of us who are truly insane.  (Of course, I would think that since I'm one of the crazy people!)

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