The Great Supreme (4)

1 Zisang Hu, Meng Zifan and Ziqin Zhang were closing friends, they liked to talk about the ways of practice together. They thought that those men of real practice lived together but they respect each other’s privacy. Each focused on his own practice, never disturbing others.

2 So, even they lived together, they appeared to live separately.

3 They supported each other voluntarily, and all their helpings were for other’s sake and to be on their own initiative. Any one had redundancy he would unconditionally shared it with others.

4 When any one of them practiced and quietly entered into Samadhi condition, the others would willingly cook and guard for him.

5 The assistance was just like the left hand helping and protecting the right hand. It was so natural, as if it were not help but an intuitive action.

6 One day, they discussed the issues regarding how to practice so that they could fly up to the heaven, how to roam around the universe, how to free from the limit of time and space and how to transmigrate and finally reach the goal of Nirvana.

7 As discussing reaching to this point, they smiled to each other. The smile adequately expressed that each of them completely made clear about this issues. They knew that they had found bosom friends so they decided to be company and encouraged each other in the life of practice.

8 It is not long after they lived together, Zisang Hu suddenly died of disease. His corpse was laid in the mourning hall. Hearing the news, Confucius specially sent Zi Gong, his disciple, to assist them in handling the mourning ceremony.

9 When Zi Gong arrived, he saw Men Zifan and Ziqin Zhang playing music and singing the song that they themselves composed in the mourning hall.

10 The song went like this: “Zisang Hu, you come back! Zisang Hu, you come back! Why do you leave us? You jump out of the transmigration. You enter into the eternal Nirvana. We are friends, aren’t we? We should leave together, shouldn’t we? How can you leave us in this world alone?”

11 Zi Gong was proficient in convenance, which was the reason why Confucius sent him to there. Looking at it, Zi Gong felt it was out of convenance. He said, “Singing in front of your friend’s corpse, it appears to break the convenance! Isn’t it?”

12 Hearing such blame, the two knew that Zi Gong was not the bird of their feathers.

13 Therefore, they smiled to each other, “Zisang Hu has been dead. How does he know the ceremony of his funeral?”

14 Zi Gong felt that they were irrational so he went back.

15 Zi Gong intently asked Confucius about this affair, “What kind of people are they? The gist of their practice is that they believe all dharmas are empty, by their very nature completely empty. They think that emptiness can solves all worry and know that form, sensation, conception, volition and consciousness all are vain and empty, by which they could achieve supreme correct enlightenment. They sing in front of his friend’s corpse. Their heart seems not to be disturbed by his friend’s death. How to remark them? I really don’t know. Who are they on earth?”

16 Confucius said, “They are very different from us. We live in the real material world whereas they float on other non-material world. Therefore, in this regards, there is no common point between them and us.

17 I really should not send you there. They regard themselves as the company of the Creator. Their lives are a part of Nature.

18 They look fresh body as tumor. Death is to excise the tumor. To men as they are, how do they care for life and death?

19 They come to this world by temporarily borrowing many materials to form the human figure. So they disregard various organs in body and neglected the sense of hearing and sight. They think that those are unreal and vain, unworthy of seeking.

20 They deem that life is transmigrated. In continuous whirling, there is no beginning and no end. There is no life and death. Life and death are relayed. Death is the beginning of another life; life is the very end of the death.”

23 Zi Gong never heard this kind of concept before from his teacher. He asked further, “If so, which world do you like, the material one or the spiritual one?” Shaking his head, Confucius bantered, “The Heaven dislikes me, so I am belonging to the material one; however, I would like to do some coordination works so as to make up for the pity.”

24 “How will you do it?” Zi Gong asked curiously.

25 Confucius said, “Fish lives in water while man lives in Tao. The creatures living in water in whole its life can habitat in the pond free and comfortably. Man living in Tao in whole his life may live in the world free and comfortably too. It is unnecessary to play conspired and unique tricks.

26 Therefore, people used to say that the air supplies us with oxygen that we can’t live without it. However, all creatures don’t remember the air all day long. Our forgetting the existence of air means that the air is abundant around us and our life is happy.

27 It is the same with fish. It’s forgetting about water means that it has been in water. When fish comes out of water to land, at that time it knows the importance of water. So, the fish that forgets about water is a happy fish.

28 People can’t live without Tao. We forget the vast powerful domination of Tao, which means that we live in Tao that takes close care of us.

29 Those that are afraid that they will break the law or infringe the moral rule, possibly they are already living in the verge of law and moral.”

30 Zi Gong wanted to have some real example to understand further his teacher’s explanation. Therefore, he asked again, “Sir. What do you think of such people as Men Zifan and Ziqin Zhang?”

31 “These people are a little odd in our eyes but they are normal and adapted to Tao of Nature. So the saying goes like this: 'the meanest thing in heaven would be the best on earth; and the best on earth, the meanest in heaven'. In the eyes of Heaven, both of us are worse than them.”