Lung Shu said to Wên Chih: 'You are the master of cunning arts. I have a disease. Can you cure it, Sir?~ Go here to read the introductory post to the chapters of the Book of Lieh Tzu.
'I am at your service,' replied Wên Chih. 'But please let me know first the symptoms of your disease.'
'I hold it no honour, said Lung Shu, 'to be praised in my native village, nor do I consider it a disgrace to he decried in my native State. Gain excites in me no joy, and loss no sorrow. I look upon life in the same light as death, upon riches in the same light as poverty, upon my fellow-men as so many swine, and upon myself as I look upon my fellow-men. I dwell in my home as though it were a mere caravanserai, and regard my native district with no more feeling than I would a barbarian State.
'Afflicted as I am in these various ways, honors and rewards fail to rouse me, pains and penalties to overawe me, good or bad fortune to influence me, joy or grief to move me. Thus I am incapable of serving my sovereign, of associating with my friends and kinsmen, of directing my wife and children, or of controlling my servants and retainers.
'Men are controlled by external influences in so far as their minds are open to impressions of good and evil, and their bodies are sensitive to injury or the reverse. But one who is able to discern a connecting unity in the most multiform diversity will surely, in his survey of the universe, be unconscious of the differences between positive and negative.
'What disease is this, and what remedy is there that will cure it?'
~ Lionel Giles translation via Terebess Asia Online
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Chapter 4, Part 3A - Lieh Tzu
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