Tian Zifang (4)

1 Confucius visited Laotse. Confucius was asked to wait in the guest room because Laotse just had bath and his hair still wet. Standing in the garden, Laotse disheveled the hair in order to dry it sooner, so as to tidy up and meet the guest.

2 Then seeing through the window of the guest room, Confucius saw Laotse standing there and having his hair disheveled. Laotse’s demeanor was uncommon, looking like a celestial being. Confucius’s admiration to him naturally occurred from his deepest heart.

3 After a while, Laotse came out to meet Confucius. Seeing him, Confucius said, “I saw you standing in the garden minutes ago. I didn’t know if I was dazzled or not. You stood there, looked like a celestial being.”

4 Laotse smiled, “Just now when I had my hair dry in the garden, I entered into the state of samadhi.”

5 “What is the state of samadhi?” asked Confucius.

6 Laotse said, “In general, it is the action of sitting in meditation, practice of Zen, and taking boating of wisdom to bank of nirvana. Its feature is that in this station the self-nature, Buddha-nature, Qi, calmness and refinement arise, it acts everywhere in the whole body. It leads body to various poses of Yoga, religious rite and the way of curing disease. Body gestures and hand gestures appear respectively. However, at that time heart or consciousness is put aside and know no thing about the process, for which, the man of practice can’t speak of it naturally. Though he doesn’t know why it is so, he knows its procedure because he does it everyday.

7 Well, today we don’t talk about it. Let me tell the phenomena that happened in the time when the earth came into being.

8 You must have heard about Yin and Yang. Pure Yin is extremely cold while pure Yang is extremely hot. Power of cold pours down from the sky and Power of hotness rises up from the earth. The two meet together and combine to produce the most primitive creature on the earth. The protoplast evolved step by step into various creatures of millions. Creatures under the sky abide by some rules of operations. Of course, the rules are not stiff clauses but there is no exception that anything can exist out of the rules.

9 The procedure of evolvement proves that all creatures have emerged and disappeared in turn. One creature booms and other creatures wash out. All creatures gradually evolve and change. They develop from microbe to plant, to animal, to insect, to vertebrate, to mammal, such as cattle, horse, sheep and monkey, finally to human.

10 The evolvement can’t be detected in a short time but it is very obvious and clear in millions years.

11 The said above is the general impression from the whole group of creature. As far as individual creature is concerned, a tree grows from a seedling. It grows tall, high and strong. At last, it withers and dies. It returns to dust by termite. The things happened before and after its life; however, are unknown.

12 The tree consists of water, fire, wind and earth, however, if there is no such thing as self-nature combined, it can’t live through its life so smoothly.”

13 Confucius asked, “Why to carry out samadhi?”

14 Laotse said, “Human is the combination of the flesh body and self-nature, Buddha-nature, Qi, calmness and refinement etc. No matter what names you called it, once it leaves the flesh body, man die. Therefore, self-nature, Buddha-nature, Qi, calmness and refinement is vital to man. It is the source of utmost joy and good for man. Carrying out samadhi makes us develop and improve the ability of communication between the flesh body and self-nature. The man with the ability is called man of perfect practice, or supreme man.”

15 Confucius asked again, “How to practice to develop and improve self-nature, Buddha-nature, Qi, calmness and refinement.”

16 Laotse said, “What kind of grass or leaf a vegetarian born to eat, the animal must eats it and should not change it abruptly. The environment of fish in water can’t be changed suddenly. It is not sustainable for fish if change the temperature and depth of water too fast. Of course, it doesn’t mean unchangeable. The degree and speed of change should be gradual.

17 Creature on land is evolved from creature in water. However, if you move fish to land in short time, it has to die. So, we just can change a little and keep the most intact.

18 Additionally, as a human, we should keep a sound, tranquil, peaceful mind so that the moods, such as joy, anger, sadness and happiness, can’t affect our mind.

19 Frankly speaking, the mood of joy, anger, sadness and happiness are resulted actually from ignorance. The great happiness of common people results from possession of car, house, wife, child and money. People congratulate others who get promotion, making fortune, marriage, birth of child and passing national test. But when we go through it, in most cases, it is unworthy of congratulating at all. In macro view, the world actually is a big furnace, from which every creature takes some material to shape up its form. The materials of all creatures are the same. When creatures cease their lives, they return the material to the furnace at end of the day.

20 In the viewpoint, our bodies, animal’s body and plant’s body are in whole material. All are dust and will return to dust at last.

21 Life is to take the material to form body; death is to cease life to return it to the furnace. Life and death shift as day and night do. They are orderly. If whole body is so, then gain, loss, misfortune and fortune are unworthy of being happy or being sad.

22 All we have to do is watching the trivia of life peacefully. Let the past be, as shake off the dust on clothes, which is nothing pitiful. We should prevent our bodies and hearts from the disturbance by moods that are triggered by conditions of outward environment, such as avarice, wrath and obsession. Things of outward environment are changeable, from nothing to something, which we can’t seize and hold. Making efforts to obtain the varying things is unwise and unworthy, which each man of perfect practice should be aware of.”

23 Confucius asked again, “In my eyes, you are already a man of perfect practice. Why do you spend so much time and energy in practice, sitting, meditation and practice of Zen everyday? Was there a man who did not practice but clung naturally to Tao?”

24 Laotse replied, “No. There has been no such man of all age. Nobody who does not practice can improve self-nature to reach the level of perfect practice.

25 In nature, spring spout naturally but virtue of the man of perfect practice is obtained by practice. The main reason is that human can’t cast off the temptations and puzzles which come to us for the strong desire for the material belongings. In this case, we can’t compare our practice to the highness of heaven, the thickness of earth and brightness of the sun and the moon. They don’t need any practice.”

自然界的泉水是自然湧出來的，可是修行完備者的德性，卻必須通過修行才有可能得到。不修行就無法排除來自物欲世界的種種誘惑和困擾，在這方面，我們不能跟天自高，地自厚，日月自明相比，因為它們是不須要修什麼的。」

26 After talk, Confucius came out and told Yan Hui, “I am somewhat like a small worm in a wine jar. Today, Laotse opens the cover of the jar and now I see the true things of the outward world. Our past lives were vain.”