The Great Supreme (3)

1 Zi Si, Zi Yu, Zi Li, Zi Lai were close friends. They often gathered to talk free.

2 Someday, they talked about the issue of life and death. They recognized that the alternation of life and death is like the shift of four seasons, which is a common sense. Owing to the recognition, they thought that who wanted to make friends with them or took part in their talk should have the same sense.

3 So they said, “Anyone could image an entity which taking naught as the head; taking life as the backbone; taking death as the tail. In this entity, the life, death, existence and naught are integral virtually. The man who had the concept was agreed to be one of our members.”

4 They set down the condition and then smiled to each other. They felt lucky that all of them had the same concept and recognition.

5 After some time, Zi Yu fell sick. Zi Si dropped in and saw him. Lying on the bed, Zi Yu said, “Alas! The Creator is fairly great. He can make me as ugly as that.”

6 Zi Yu’s back hunched very much so his guts became inside out; his chin was pressed to navel; his shoulder became higher than his head; his neck exposed towards the sky. His whole physiological system was in disorder but his heart was still calm.

7 He got up and then moved slowly to the corner of the wall. He vented a pant and said, “The Creator should make me like this, because it is me.”

8 Zi Si asked, “Do you really have no complaint that Heaven was unfair to you?”

9 Zi Yu said, “No, No. Never! Why do I complain? If Heaven suddenly produced a strange idea to conjure my left hand into a cock, I would ask it to wake up all people every morning.

10 If Heaven conjured my right hand into a stone sling, I would use it to shoot bird and toast the bird.

11 If it conjured my buttocks into wheels and my soul into a horse, then I would joyfully drive the buttocks carriage and I didn’t need to buy a carriage anymore.

12 The reason for me to be a man in this world is nothing but it is my turn.

13 Today I am so sick and it seems my days are in number, which is my destiny. I calmly accept the befalling and delightedly accept the leaving.

14 Joy and sadness can’t disturb my heart. I act all on the schedule of the Tao of Nature. Such a practice was anciently called: 'Release from the hanging by feet on beam'.

15 Someone can’t emancipate their hearts from the bondage of the world, because they are tempted by and obsessed with the material.

16 The wise should know that the material is eternally under the control of Creator. It can’t prevail against the Creator.

17 As long as we live in terms of the Tao of Creator, there is nothing to complain　about.”

18 Not long afterwards, Zi Lai fell ill. His illness was very severe, almost dying.

19 His family members were at a loss, gathering around his bed and crying.

20 Zi Li came to see him in front of his bed at that time. Hearing Zi Lai’s family members' crying, he felt irritated. He directly asked them to get out.

21 He said, “Get out! Get out! Crying like this before a sick man is not allowed. It is called: 'Breaking the rule of evading the retribution of Nature.' What’s more you would obstruct Zi Lai’s operation of returning to the nature.”

22 After Zi Li drove off Zi Lai’s family members out of the room, he turned to lean against the wall and said, “I don’t know what the great Creator would conjure you into in the next turn. Do you think that it will conjure you into the liver cell of a mouse or the wings of an insect?”

23 Zi Lai said, “As a son, I have to obey my parents. Where they ask me to go, east or west, north or south, I have to obey. There is no other choice.

24 The vital yin and yang actually are human’s parent. If they asked me to die early and I scuffed here to delay, it would be my fault and have nothing to do with the yin and yang.

25 The Creator arranges me to toil in my whole life. With the time past, the Creator makes me senile and arranges me to die and repose forever.

26 Therefore, the Creator, who bestows life on me and guides my life, is the one who asks me to die early. The Creator does the both.

27 It is like that a bubble of metal fusion liquor in a big smelter, jumps out and asks the smith, “Make me into Moxie Sword.” The smith surely would refuse it because he thinks that the scene is ominous and an ominous sword is absolutely not to be made.

28 If in the big smelter of people creating, I made uproar to ask the Creator to make me into a man, the Creator would feel annoying too; he perhaps would think me a wearisome troublemaker and would not make me into a man.

29 If we think Nature as smelter and the Creator as smith, why am I afraid what the Creator will make me into?”

30 Finishing the talk, Zi Lai fell into fast asleep. It was surprising that he was totally recovered next morning. The deadly illness was cured without medication.