Opening Casket (2)

1 Tao Te Ching by Laotse mentions that “Fish should be left in the deep pool, and sharp weapons of the state should be left where none can see them”. We should make clear that the so-called sages in our society just are the sharp weapons of the state so we must ban their indulgence in the loud and empty talk in public all days.

2 On the basis of this recognition, the sages and the confusing knowledge should be deserted, only by this way the bandits would be vanished; when we thrown away those valuable and luring jewels, then the thief would disappear; ID card should be burned and the jade seal of kings and dukes should be crushed, which may enable people return to the life of simplicity and purity.

3 The measure tools should be destroyed to make people generous and tolerant; all constitutions and systems should be abolished to make people know the truth of Tao.

4 Six pitches should be annulled, all instruments should be burn off and musician’s ears should be plugged to stop their playing, by which people can restore his original listening ability.

5 Enjoyment of colorful and luxuriant decoration should be abandoned, regulation of color match should be forgotten and the eyes of color carper, such as Li Zhu, should be covered, by which people’s sight recovers.

6 The measure tools, such as ruler, compasses and plumb, should be deserted and the fingers of skillful craftsmen, such as Gong Chui should be cut off, by which people possibly exert their own inherent craft.

7 It is said that the greatest exquisiteness looks clumsiness. Let’s confine actions of the people such as Shi You and Zeng Can and shut the continuously debating mouths of the people such as Yangzhu and Mozi, which make people’s virtue recover, melt into and return to the Nature.

8 If everyone doesn’t show off his talent, people would not be perplexed.

9 If everyone doesn’t boast of his intelligent, our environment will be in peace.

10 If everyone could conserve his original wisdom, he would not live in confusion and at a loss.

11 If everyone could highlight his original virtue, the operation of Nature would be set on right and smooth path. Those people such as Zeng Can, Shi You, Yang Zhu, Mo Qu, Jie Kuang, Gong Chui, Li Zhu, threw away their original virtues to develop acquired craft and technique so they made this world messy. Their petty craft and technique, constitutions and laws, and the codes of conduct are nothing but harm to all of us.

12 The most ideal society is this: people live simple and plain lives and they knot ropes to record something without written language to accumulate knowledge. Therefore, people of pure and simple thinking live with other creatures under the condition of relatively balance field.

13 They don’t need to take their ingenuity for food because any food that can quench hunger is delicious. They don’t require the best food and don’t waste any food, for which lives are respected to some extent. People don’t kill shark just for its fins. Thus shark is protected from extinction.

14 Clothes that can keep body warm are good and beautiful. A deer hide that is cast on body in winter can keep people warm; where a small piece of it to cover some part of body in summer. It is unnecessary to dress much clothes, waste, heavy and clumsy.

15 In their wardrobe, modern people have a lot of clothes, some of which they don’t wear a time in years. Use of clothes had been more than its function of warmness.

16 The custom is formed by the habits; all people living in the certain area will accept and do it accordingly. For example, people celebrate the new year of lunar calendar in China, how they pass the last evening; how to prepare the dishes for it and how to display the sacrifice on the first day etc. All of those are serious and strictly written in terms of a certain style and in a certain time. Custom becomes the power to unify people and enforce them to live together tightly.

17 The society where the custom dismisses and even vanishes will collapse. People live peacefully and enjoy their works in villages. If nobody had induced them to immigrate to other place, the big cities would not have come into being, there would not have vagrants who gather in the corner of cities to be the source of crime, and the kids and the old would have not been left in the lonely villages.

18 Members of family stay together. The proportion of the old, the young and the kids is rational. Thus life of village becomes vigorous and active.

19 The sound of poultry and livestock in nearby tribes are heard each other. People live happily in their own field. Nobody has the concept of emigration. Thus the distribution of population all around the country becomes even and the ecological environment is conserved.

20 This ideal society prevailed in the ancient time, such as the ages of Rongcheng Shi, Dating Shi, Bohuang Shi, Zhongyang Shi, Lilu Shi, Lichu Shi, Xuanyuan Shi, Hexu Shi, Zunlu Shi, Zhurong Shi, Fuxi Shi, and Shengnong Shi. However now nobody knows it.

21 In Chuang Tzu’s utopia, the most important principle is that people are fixed to the earth and are prudent in migration, with an easy and simple life indifferent to fame or benefit. It should be condemned and avoided to encourage people migration.

22 When the leaders of a country employed new ways and concept of governance to improve people’s life and strengthen the economic power, the people around the country leave their houses and scramble to immigrate into it in various ways. On the road of immigration, their morale fluctuates. The old immigrants repel and bully the new one, for which the new ones have much difficulty in making living. They have to think out various and odd ways to make living. The society disorders under the condition of messy morale.

23 The reason that people can’t keep a clam, peaceful and auspicious mood, originates from those new tools or knowledge employed by some politician in position.

24 From the eighteenth century, civilization of human being made a big leap, which caused the development of the civilization to exceed the progress of total knowledge in past thousands of years. Propelled by the new knowledge, the miserable earth suffered enormously.

25 For example, when the slinger was improved, birds became unsafe.

26 When the equipment of fishery was updated as well as GPS was used, fishes in sea were exposed.

27 When the tools of preying were ameliorated, fox and deer in suburban vanished.

28 When the tricks were innovated, people’s discretion of goodness and evilness, the true and the false were weakened.

29 Knowledge was mixed with tactics, tricks and intrigue. The interaction disordered our society.

30 We may see that unfairness and sadness in the slums all around the world’s big cities, turned into the source of crime. The cause is that the prosperity of knowledge lures people all around the country to throng into the cities. They become vagrants who produce disorder.

31 The planting and breeding proficiency of people in villages can support themselves to live an easy and simple life indifferent to fame or benefit. However after TV sets come into villages and knowledge comes into their minds by books and newspapers, their children become unsettled. Giving up the agricultural technique that is inherited from their parents, they throng into cities to learn unfamiliar knowledge to become craftsman, servant, technician, teacher and politician.

32 They give up their proficient technique of living to seek unfamiliar ones. They finally bring disturbance and disorder to the society. The society is filled with enormous complaints, anger, and hatred, which disturbs the operations of Nature.

33 From the beginning of civilization of human, the disorder caused by employing new knowledge and tools have lasted to today. People sniff at the easy and simple life indifferent to fame or benefit, considering it as the life of a stale and pedantic scholar. They scrabble for tactics, powers and intrigues. The peaceful and tranquil life is replaced with that of a concept of sophism and rivalry, which people should know it is the main cause of today’s social disorder.